Event Details:

About the Speaker

For more than fifty years, Dr. Hartwig has lived in Minnesota, North Carolina and Tanzania as a teacher, researcher, program facilitator and as a writer. She taught at St. Olaf College and North Carolina Central University. The Lutheran College Consortium for Tanzania, an exchange program between several Lutheran colleges and the University of Dar es Salaam was operative for thirty-three years. Mwangaza Education for Parthership ELCA/ELCT is in its twenty first year. She has published four books, the most recent – EDUCATION OF A STRANGER (2014) and LIVING WITH DYING – A FAMILY VOCATION (2017). The primary documents, letters, pictures and tapes related to ANICETI KITEREZA – A TANZANIAN EPIC, were collected in 1969 when she lived on the island of Ukerewe. During that time, her husband, Gerald Hartwig, assembled oral traditions from the Bakerebe in preparation of writing their history. Kitereza was one of his informants. The Hartwigs published four articles related to Kitereza's novel – Bwana Myombekere na Bibi Bugonoka.

Currently, Dr. Hartwig lives in Roseville, MN. She is mother of four, grandmother of five and great-grandmother of seven.

About the Talk

His book Myombekere na Buganoka, received a mere glance in 1945. Yet, when Aniceti Kitereza welcomed an American to his home on the island of Ukerewe, Tanzania in 1969, ordinary began to be transformed to extraordinary. From her forthcoming book – Aniceti Kitereza – A Tanzanian Epic, Dr. Shoonie Hartwig will give glimpses in word and picture of Kitereza's writing, its one of a kind contribution to African literature and the man, a one of a kind lived epic. His novel first written in Kikerebe, is now published in Kiswahili, French, German and English. The story of the publishing process is an epistolary saga. The story of the man places Kitereza and Tanzania at the epic center of African literature.