The Jalada Translation Project

78 – that is the current number of languages that the short story, “Ituĩka Rĩa Mũrũngarũ: Kana Kĩrĩa Gĩtũmaga Andũ Mathiĩ Marũngiĩ” has been translated into, and that number is increasing.

For just shy of 5 years, Moses Kilolo acted as the Managing Editor for Jalada Africa. Among a great many achievements during this time, Moses has been arguably best known for his active involvement and leadership in the Jalada Translation Project. We had the honor to listen to Moses Kilolo (one of the founding members and former Managing Editor of Jalada – a pan-African writers’ collective) during the 1st Africa International Tr…. Later, we seized the opportunity to interview Moses to learn more about how the project took on a life form of its own, one language at a time.

Jalada – a pan-African writers’ collective

Before we delve into the Jalada Translation Project however, we must first understand its genesis. Little did any of the attendees know that a 2013, three-day writers’ workshop in Nairobi convened by Ellah Wakatama Allfrey would lead to such an amazing adventure. A group of a dozen or so young African writers assembled from Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Nigeria. They listened, shared stories, and provided support and critique for each other’s literary works. It was during the workshop that a discussion broke out around the possibility of creating an ongoing collective group for young writers. The group began to throw around some names for the collective and eventually, they settled on “Jalada – a pan-African writers’ collective.” Although the Swahili word, “jalada” has a variety of translated meanings, Moses Kilolo explains that the group’s intended meaning was,

an archive of stories from every corner of the African continent, a library of anthologies online…”

In an effort to keep the group’s momentum alive, Okwiri Oduor (2014 winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing) started the online Google group, “Jalada”, and this is where conversations about the trajectory of the collective continued to happen.