Historical circumstances easily explain why political questions have been at the heart of the Swahili novel in Tanzania in the years since independence. Patricia Mbughuni has argued that Swahili literature followed the path of a politicization that steadily became more explicit (Mbughuni, 1978a). The years under Nyerere's regime fall within this scheme. Tanzanian society was shaped by political sloganeering for at least three decades. This society was subjected to a pronounced political thrust. The Arusha Declaration of 1967 that launched the Ujamaa politics of grouping villages is an example of a discourse that is closely connected with basic social transformations.

The direct impact of words fired the imagination of writers of that time. In an article on the effect of the state's ideology on Swahili language and literature, Jan Blommaert shows