Neema Komba |
Neema Komba is a Tanzanian poet, writer, and researcher. She
is the author of Mektildis Kapinga: A silent hero and See through the
complicated. Her story Let them eat fruit cake published by Index on Censorship
was nominated as one of the best original fiction in 2019 by the Stack Awards,
and her flash story Setting Babu on Fire won the Etisalat Prize in 2014. Her
works appear in online literary platforms such as Adda Stories, Brittle Paper
and Umbu. She has also published stories and essays in anthologies such as Safe
House: Explorations in Creative Nonfiction, and Payback and Other Stories: An
anthology for African and African Diaspora Short Stories. She is the co-founder
of LaPoetista, a platform for poets and other performing artists to showcase
their art and create a positive impact in the community through the arts, and
in 2022, she was nominated for the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative.
Neema is currently finalizing her doctoral studies at the Hanken School of
Economics in Helsinki, Finland.
During the MMF writing scholarship, Neema will work on her
first novel tentatively titled God’s country. The novel will blend history and
fiction to tell the story of Mkomanile, a formidable Ngoni general in the
Majimaji rebellion against the illegitimate colonial administration. By
centring the story around Mkomanile (a woman leader of the rebellion), she
hopes to re-imagine the heroines who were erased in the telling of history.