Nahida Esmail was born and raised in Tanzania. She graduated from Goldsmiths College, University of London, with a BSc in Psychology and completed a Masters in Child Development with Early Childhood Education at the Institute of Education, University of London. She writes fictional stories for children and young adults and has published 30 books. Nahida’s writing journey began when she went in search of books for her daughter but was disappointed at the lack of books written by and for Tanzanians; and so she decided to write them. She has won four of CODE’s Burt Awards for African Literature (Living in the Shade, Lesslie the City Maasai, Detectives of Shangani - The mystery of the lost rubies, and Living in the Shade: Aiming for the Summit). Her latest book is Karafu: A freed Slave which is a historical fiction set in Zanzibar in the 1830s.
In 2015, she was honoured with the Tanzania Women’s Achievement Award in the education category. She is the chief judge for the Wakini Kuria Award for African Literature (Children’s Literature).
