The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete.  Sandstein  22:06, 12 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Tobias Dossi (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Subject of the article fails WP:GNG and WP:AUTHOR. I can't find any evidence of notability. Wikic¤l¤gy^{t@lk to M£} 21:44, 8 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This author's books, though currently out of print, are well known in Malawi. The book "Makangano a Zamoyo" was reprinted seven times between 1965 and 1998 and was on the school syllabus for a long time. The other one was also printed at least twice between 1953 and 1999. The article is also one of a series of articles on Malawian writers in the Chichewa language, and the series would be incomplete without it. Don't forget also that this article is a stub. It has been put here so that people who have access to further information can add to it. So please do not delete it! Kanjuzi (talk) 04:04, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Wikic¤l¤gy^{t@lk to M£} 02:57, 16 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. Wikic¤l¤gy^{t@lk to M£} 02:57, 16 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete for now and draft and userfy if needed as the best I found was some links at Books but certainly nothing better. SwisterTwister talk 08:32, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Although there's not much publicly available information about this author, I feel that the notability qualifications for Malawian writers need to be less strict than for European or American ones. After all, there have been only 50 or so, or certainly less than 100, literary works written in the Chichewa (Chewa) language. These two books, which were reprinted several times over a period of 30 years, were on the school syllabus, and are well known in Malawi, are therefore notable by local standards. The internet has only been going here for a short time, so you can't expect a lot of coverage of an author who died some time ago. Notability is one Wikipedia policy, but another policy is to increase the coverage of parts of the world other than English-speaking countries. This second policy will fall at the first hurdle if you insist that everything mentioned should have been covered in media reports or academic books written by English-speakers. For this reason I think the article should stay. Kanjuzi (talk) 19:05, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We don't insist that they be covered in works "written by English-speakers" at all. What we do insist is that their notability should be verifiable. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 08:59, 4 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete, not much to show this is notable. VegasCasinoKid (talk) 09:12, 4 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment Google Book search leads me to think that Dossi is mentioned, perhaps covered, perhaps not, in "Companion to African Literatures " by Killam and Rowe, but I can't verify that there or via Amazon. If Dossi has a full bio there, I'd find that evidence enough to support a keep, along with the couple other mentions I can find, e.g., [1]. --joe decker^talk 16:52, 9 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.