Forum to enhance literary translation, enrich Nigeria’s creative economy holds in Abuja
By Editor
WRITERS, translators, publishers, and scholars from Nigeria and the United Kingdom will gather in Abuja later this month for a public forum exploring the role of literary translation in expanding Nigeria’s creative economy and strengthening the global visibility of African-language literature. The event, titled ‘Building Networks, Partnerships, and Infrastructure for Literary Translation between the UK and Nigeria’, will take place on Friday, March 27, 2026 at Mamman Vatsa Writers Village, aBUJA. It’s sponsored by the School of Oriental and Africana Studies (SOAS), University of London and the International Science Partnerships (ISPF), ODA fund in collaboration with Open Arts Development Foundation.
The forum brings together leading figures from Nigeria’s literary and publishing communities alongside international scholars to discuss how translation can help Nigerian writers reach wider audiences while creating new professional opportunities for translators, editors, and publishers.
The Abuja gathering is a collaboration between Nigerian cultural organisations and SOAS University of London and designed to strengthen networks for translating Nigerian-language literature and to develop sustainable pathways for literary translation in Nigeria. A keynote lecture will be delivered by literary translator Ida Hadjivayanis of SOAS University of London, who has translated two novels by Nobel literature laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah into Swahili and will speak on the role of translation in connecting African literary markets and supporting creative industries.
Panel discussions will explore practical issues, including publishing translated African literature, developing sustainable translation careers, and expanding the circulation of literature written in Nigerian languages such as Hausa.
The event will feature contributions from Nigerian writers, translators, publishers, and cultural organisations, including representatives from independent publishing houses and literary initiatives working to expand opportunities for Nigerian literature both locally and internationally.
Dr. Carmen McCain of SOAS, University of London
According to the project organiser, Dr. Carmen McCain, the forum aims to strengthen collaboration between translators and publishers while highlighting the importance of translation as both cultural work and professional practice.
According to McCain, “Nigeria has one of the most vibrant literary cultures in Africa. While Nigeria is most known internationally for its English language literature, there are tens of thousands of novels in Hausa, and yet fewer than ten of them have been translated into English. Other Nigerian language literatures are also rarely translated or circulated internationally. By bringing together writers, translators, and publishers, we hope to build stronger networks that can support translation and help Nigerian stories reach wider audiences, while also following Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o to encourage writers to “enrich” Nigerian languages by translating other African and world literatures into those languages.”
Writer, cultural organiser and founder of the Open Arts Foundation, Sada Malumfashi, emphasised the importance of building translation infrastructure within Nigeria itself.
“Nigeria has a vast literary tradition in languages such as Hausa, yet many of these works remain inaccessible to wider audiences. Strengthening literary translation will create opportunities for writers, translators, publishers, and readers. By building stronger networks, we can ensure that stories written in our languages travel further and reach new generations of readers.”
The public forum is open to writers, students, translators, publishers, and anyone interested in Nigerian literature and the future of translation in Africa.
The translation forum is particularly timely because of the new translation literary prize called EBRD Literature Prize 2026 worth €20,000, organised by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The bank recently started operations in Nigeria, a development that makes translated fiction from Nigerian languages into English eligible. Nigeria’s novelist Chigozie Obioma is among the 4-man jury for the prize that also includes Lea Ypi, Marek Kohn and heded by culture journalist an critic, Dr. Maya Jaggi. This year’s prize, which entry opened in December 2025, will be awarded on JUly 2, 2026 at the bank’s headquarters in London. The €20,000 will be shared equally between the writer and the translator.
Fiction transpated from indigenous languages in countries like Benin Republic, Cote d’Ivoire, Iraq, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and some European countries into English are eligible for the prize.
Attendance is free and open to the public.
