Bahadur Tejani
- 1942
- (M.A. Cambridge; Ph.D. Nairobi
- Lecturer
- Poet
- Author
- Siblings
Bahadur Tejani was one of the first Asians able to apply himself full-time to literary endeavor.
He taught in the University of Nairobi Department of Literature and then in the English Department of the University of Sokoto in Nigeria after reading literature at Makerere and then philosophy at Cambridge.
At Makerere, he was a classmate of Ngugi wa Thiong’o and with Peter Nazareth a sports editor for the for issues of The Makererean.
Tejani quickly established a reputation as a novelist and critic as well as a poet. One of his best-known poems is “Wild Horse of Serengeti.”
"Bahadur Tejani’s Day after Tomorrow (published in 1971) is the story of an Asian who breaks from the tradition of his community by marrying an African nurse and forsaking a lucrative business to become a teacher. It too was widely read."
The Rise and Fall of Philanthropy in East Africa by Robert Gregory pg 174-176
Tejani has published a collection of poems about India, entitled The Rape of Literature and Other Poems (1989). His work has also appeared in anthologies such as Poems from East Africa (1971) and Poems of Black Africa (1975).
We provide below a link to an excellent interview with Bahadur Tejani in 1993 on the state of African Literary arts.
