When I started translating Swahili poetry two and a half years ago, I certainly did not anticipate that it would lead me to write an academic paper. But I found the process of translating this particular poem by Muyaka bin Haji al-Ghassaniy so fascinating that I needed another outlet to share everything that happened behind the scenes. You can read the fruit of my agonies “The Dance of the Spinning Top: Translating Resistance in the Poetry of Muyaka” in the new issue of Swahili Forum.

For a much shorter read, I recently had the opportunity to share some thoughts about translating Katama Mkangi’s Africanfuturist Swahili novel Walenisi for Asymptote‘s blog, as part of a new series profiling this year’s PEN/Heim grantees.

And finally, you can read my translation of the first chapter of Walenisi in No Edges: Swahili Stories, the first collection of Swahili fiction to be translated into English. (Publishers Weekly recently called it “a literary feast,” and named my excerpt the “highlight”).