Translator Bios

My name’s El Housseine Abouazza. I’m a 36-year-old teacher of English, writer, and translator based in Marrakech, Morocco. I hold a MA in specialized translation and am a Fulbrighter. With a passion for language and education, I have received several teaching awards and certificates and have participated in numerous projects related to content writing and translation. In my free time, I enjoy playing chess, learning new languages, and enjoying my own company. My personal goal is to build a family, while my professional goal is to achieve financial success. I am known for being reliable and a polyglot, a native speaker of both Tamazight, and Darija, and proficient in Arabic, English, and French. I am determined to reach my full potential and make the most of my time.

Jerry Chiemeke is a writer, music journalist, film critic and lawyer. His works have appeared in The Africa Report, Berlinale, The Republic, Africine, Netng and The Lagos Review, among others. He lives in London, from where he writes on Nollywood, African literature, and Nigerian music.

Iquo DianaAbasi is a creative writer and performer. She writes prose, poetry and scripts for radio and screen. Her writings explore societal issues, womanhood, the environment and the need to embrace our humanity as a precursor to healing.

Coming Undone as Stitches Tighten, Iquo’s second poetry collection, was nominated for the 2022 NLNG Nigeria prize for literature. In April 2022, Iquo released Beyond the Staccato, her first audio offering of poems and music. This album is a commentary on the state of affairs in Nigeria.

She is also the author of the short story collection, Èfó Rírò and Other Stories, which was released in 2020 to much acclaim, and Symphony of Becoming, which was longlisted for the NLNG Nigeria prize for literature, the ANA poetry prize, and the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature.

Her writings appear in African Literature Today, Poetry potion, Brittle Paper, Kalahari review, AfricaInWords, Saraba magazine, Ebedi Review, ANA Review, and several other print and online poetry anthologies.

Iquo is known to perform her poems with a touch of Ibibio folklore. Stages she has graced include: Pa Gya! Festival Accra, Lagos International Poetry Festival, Ake Arts and Book Festival, The Big60 Cultural Exchange, Wole Soyinka @80, Lagos Black Heritage Festival, The Macmillan Literary night, PLAY Poetry Festival and more.

Iquo edits the African speculative fiction magazine, omenana.com and is presently a graduate student at The University of Alabama.

Rasaq Malik is a graduate of the University of Ibadan. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in African American Review, Antigonish Review, Colorado Review, Crab Orchard Review, Lit Hub, Michigan Quarterly Review, Olongo Africa, Transition, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. He won Honorable Mention in 2015 Best of the Net for his poem "Elegy", published in One. In 2017, Rattle and Poet Lore nominated his poems for the Pushcart Prize. He was shortlisted for Brunel International African Poetry Prize in 2017. He was a finalist for Sillerman First Book for African Poets in 2018.

Habiba Malumfashi is a writer and bilingual translator in Hausa and English living in Kaduna, Nigeria. Habiba is interested in the intricacies of language and how words evolve in different languages. She writes reviews on a vast genre of books and writes and performs poetry in both English and Hausa languages. Her book reviews can be found on Brittle Paper and Ayamba LitCast. Her poetry can be found on the Kalahari Review.

Sada Malumfashi is a writer and cultural curator from Nigeria. He is the Founder of Open Arts, a literary and arts collective where he curates the Hausa International Book and Arts Festival (HIBAF), a crisscross festival of arts and language by and for African creatives in an indigenous language. He has produced video documentaries exploring identity of cultural and artistic producers of Hausa diaspora across the world. His fiction has appeared in Lolwe, Bakwa Magazine, Transition Magazine and New Orleans Review.

Yvonne Chioma Mbanefo is a multidisciplinary cultural consultant and historian who specializes in digital media, cultural heritage, and education. She uses Igbo, African and Black cultural storytelling to frame history and help people understand modern global interactions. Yvonne works with media and corporate companies to ensure accurate representation and diversity in their projects.

She has worked on a variety of projects including an award-winning feature film set in 18th century Igboland, a production at the National Theatre London and a SOAS University of London and Cambridge University project on decolonizing the archives. Yvonne is the author of the best-selling Igbo dictionary for children and was invited to deliver a TED Global talk about preserving African languages in 2017.

With a career spanning more than two decades, Yvonne Mbanefo has gained a wealth of experience in various industries, including media, film, IT, education, and heritage management. She is dedicated to using her expertise and experiences to educate others through storytelling, utilizing a variety of mediums.

Mary Mukami is an ardent English - Swahili translator who has previously worked in the Corporate Communication Department at the Engineers Board of Kenya and in the Administration Department at Talent Recruit Limited Company. She is a Master of Arts degree holder in Translation, having pursued a double - major in Literature and Kiswahili at the undergraduate level, both from the University of Nairobi. Mary enjoys acting on stage and in film, writing poetry besides translation—her present-day engagement. At the moment, Mary enjoys freelancing while balancing motherhood as a first-time mother.

Carl Terver is a Nigerian writer of Tiv ancestry. He holds a BA English from Benue State University, Makurdi, and writes about film, literature, and music. He is a style critic, writing mostly on new Nigerian poetry; an editor, and poet known for his minimalist poetry in style of the 7th century Japanese poet Hitomaro. His work has been published in The Republic, Olongo Africa, The Stockholm Review, The Shallow Tales Review, Iskanchi, The Question Marker, Millennial Poets, and Konya Shamsrumi. He is the founding editor at Afapinen, a magazine of Nigerian criticism, and Digital Editions Editor at Konya Shamsrumi, an African poetry collective, and the author of the poetry chapbook, For Girl at Rubicon.

Omoyemwen Toni Anne Uwaifo is proficient in Edo, Nigerian Pidgin English and English Languages. She is currently learning Hausa, German and French. She is a passionate advocate of the use of indigenous languages in Nigeria. An avid traveller, reader and storyteller, she is a Communications Manager where she uses her skill as a corporate storyteller to help companies shape their brand identity, culture and reputation.

Toni Anne’s favourite place to visit in any city is the library.

Zambian-born, Zimbabwean-raised South African writer and Kenyan-residing Zukiswa Wanner was the first African woman to win the Goethe Medal, a German national prize given to non-Germans for her contribution to cultural relations. Her debut novel The Madams was shortlisted for the K.Sello Duiker Memorial Award in 2007; her third novel, Men of the South was shortlisted for Commonwealth Best Book in 2011; and her fourth novel London Cape Town Joburg won the K. Sello Duiker Award. Wanner has also written three children's books a travel book and a satirical nonfiction. She has been a columnist for publications including True Love and Mail & Guardian (South Africa), Nation (Kenya), New African (United Kingdom) and has written for other insignificant publications like New York Times and The Guardian.

She has conducted writing workshops and Masterclasses in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, Denmark, Germany, Tanzania, Rwanda, Nigeria and Ghana.

Wanner is the founder and curator of Artistic Encounters, the first lockdown virtual literary festival Afrolit Sans Frontieres and Virtually Yours. She is a founder and publishing manager of Paivapo, one of whose novels Loose Ties by Yara Monteiro has just been longlisted for the prestigious Dublin Literary Award, the first time the award has had two books by two African women publishers longlisted.

She is a 2022 Moi University African Cluster Centre Fellow in Kenya; 2018 Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study Fellow and 2016 Danish International Visiting Artist (DIVA).