Aniceti Kitereza was a Tanzanian novelist, was born in 1896 to Muchuma and her husband Malindima in Ukerewe, Tanzania.
Background
He was the grandson of the king Machunda from the Silanga clan of the island of Ukerewe in the lake Victoria. In 1901 when Kitereza was a young boy of five, his father died of smallpox. Kitereza and his mother then went to live at the court of the Omukama.
Career
In 1945, he wrote the famous novel Myombekere na Bugonoka na Ntulanalwo na Bulihwali in his native language, Kikerewe. Kitereza began schooling at Kagunguli Mission in 1905. There he was baptized and given the Christian name of Aniceti.
Kitereza studied at the Rubya Seminary for ten years advancing to senior seminary and mastering Latin, the medium of instruction in Roman Catholic seminaries.
He learned Greek, a requirement of the classical education of the seminary as well as German, the language of the colonial masters. Kitereza also learned Swahili, the African language used as the lingua franca by Arab traders, slavers, and the coastal middlemen.
Kitereza also learned English after German defeat in the World War I. In addition to the languages, he studied theology and philosophy as part of his Roman Catholic priesthood training.