Write the World 2025: New Directions in African Literary Translation

Four writer-translators from the continent lay out their analyses of the present and visions of the future, touching on, among other questions, practical challenges and gaps still to be filled, translation both into and out of African languages, translating and incorporating indigenous literary theory and frameworks, counterprogramming the dominance of English, and translation as a resource for multilingual writers and critics.

Moderator: Ibrahim Fawzy

Panelists: Bethlehem Attfield, Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún, Tsitsi Ella Jaji

Ibrahim Fawzy is an Egyptian writer and literary translator working between Arabic and English. Fawzy earned his BA and MA in Comparative Literature from Fayoum University, Egypt and is completing an MFA at Boston University. His accolades include a 2024-25 Global Africa Translation Fellowship, a 2024 PEN Presents Award, and the 2024 Peter K. Jansen Memorial Travel Fellowship from ALTA.

Bethlehem Attfield is a PhD candidate at Birmingham University, researching the translation of African-language literature. Her translation of Yismake Worku’s Amharic novel, The Lost Spell, was shortlisted for the 2022 SoA Translation Prize. She is a recipient of the 2023-24 Global Africa Translation Fellowship and hosts the podcast Journey to Ethiopia with Story.

Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún is publisher of OlongoAfrica and author of Edwardsville by Heart (2018), Ìgbà Èwe: Translated Poems of Emily R. Grosholz (2021), and Èṣù at the Library & Other Poems (2024). He has been a Fulbright scholar, Miles Morland Writing Fellow, and Chevening Research Fellow. He is the current Africa co-editor of the Best Literary Translations anthology published by Deep Vellum.

Tsitsi Ella Jaji is Helen L. Bevington Associate Professor of Modern Poetry at Duke University. Originally from Zimbabwe, Jaji’s two full-length poetry collections are Mother Tongues (2019) and Beating the Graves (2017). Her critical book, Africa in Stereo: Music, Modernism and Pan-African Solidarity (Oxford), won the African Literature Association’s First Book Prize.

Links and Resources Mentioned:

Tsitsi’s book
Best Literary Translations 2024

Best Literary Translations 2025
African Language Literatures in Translation Series
OlongoAfrica Multilingual Anthology
Global Africa Translation Fellowship
African Poetry Book Fund