Elieshi Lema
Elieshi Lema is a Tanzanian writer and publisher, also active in Tanzania's civil society.
She was born in the village of Nronga and grew up there. She studied library science and worked at the national library. She continued her education by studying English literature at the University of Dar es Salaam and creative writing at San Francisco State University.
Lema began writing poetry and then children's books before writing her first novel Parched Earth in English in 2001. This novel has been translated into Swedish and French and received honourable mention for the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa. A book for young adults In the Belly of Dar es Salaam was on the short list for the Burt Award for African Literature. Lema is co-owner of the publishing house E&D Vision Publishing, which also operates a book café. E&D Vision Publishing mainly has published children's books, textbooks and titles about African history, both in Swahili as well as in English. In 1998, they published the first booklet for young readers on the history of the dinosaurs of Tendaguru, which is currently out of print.
She was a founding director for the Tanzania Cultural Trust Fund. Lema has served on the board for the African Publishers Network, HakiElimu, the Tanzania Gender Networking Programme and the Tanzania Media Fund and on the executive for the Publishers Association of Tanzania and the Children's Book Network.
