Applications are now open for Olongo Africa’s new Multilingual Anthology Project in print in 2024. If you are a translator in African languages, consider applying for this prestigious opportunity.

Olongo Africa is a web publication published under The Brick House Collective. The Olongo is the orange-cheeked Waxbill (Estrilda Melpoda M) common in West Africa, whose call is a continuous twittering. Olongo Africa is akin to the twittering community of opinion, literature, travelogue, journalism, and topical writing in Africa. The publisher is Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún and editor is Olajide Salawu.

The multilingual anthology project is not new. In celebration of Mother Tongue Day for 2023, Olongo Africa published a multilingual anthology to raise awareness for African stories in African languages. The collection was edited by Kọ́lá Túbọsún and Olajide Salawu. Read about the anthology here.

The first phase of the project involved translating stories into seven African languages which included Yorùbá, Hause, Tamazight, Edo, Swahili, Tiv, Ibibio, Shona, Nigerian Pidgin English, and Igbo. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o remarked about te project, “African languages must talk to each other. This project adds to a much needed and necessary conversation among African languages.”

A print edition of the project, featuring the 10 original stories and their translations, and 10 more stories and translations, is planned for 2024. And for this, Olongo Africa seek snew translators for other African languages: Bambara, Somali, Fulfulde, Amharic, Arabic, Berom, Xhosa, Dinka, Fon, and many others not listed here. I

If you speak, write, and translate into and from these and other languages not yet listed, please apply by reaching out to [email protected]. Selected translators will be paid honorarium.

Deadline: January 15, 2024

Good luck to all applicants!