Uganda, March 2 -- Tanzanian authors Philipo Oyaro and Fatuma Salim have won the top prizes at the 2023 Safal-Cornell Kiswahili Prize for African Literature competition.

Oyaro won the first prize in the fiction category for his novel Dunia Duara (The Earth is Round), while Salim's Changa La Macho (Sand in the Eyes) took the top prize in the poetry category. She became the first woman to win the poetry category. Both Oyaro and Salim received $5,000 (Shs19.5m) in prize money.

Dunia Duara is a crime detective story whose plot revolves around Aneth, a beautiful girl and the leader of a mining company, who has multiple lovers. After being raped by one of her business associates, more salt is added to her wound when she ends up in the High Co...