I think back often to when I spent most of my time on this blog, writing about everything that caught my fancy. Granted, this was when I was a grad school student, with days filled with adventure, youthful exuberance, travels, classroom experiences, and all manner of observations. At some point, I published twice a day. Good days. These days, I’m babysitting a two-year-old, when the ten-year-old is in school, and managing to squeeze my own reading and writing in-between.

Today, I got an email from our publisher that the sophomore edition of Best Literary Translations anthology will soon be in print, and we’d soon get our galley/complimentary copies. Yes, this is the first time I’m mentioning the book here so a little background is helpful.

[Book photo from Red Emma’s]

Sometime during the pandemic, I came across the open role for an African co-editor of a new anthology of literary translations into English. I applied and, eventually, got it. The four of us, Wendy Call (the founder/coordinator), Noh Anothai, and Oyku Tekten have now managed to pull off a maiden edition, published in 2024, and this sophomore edition coming out around April. It has been positively reviewed in a number of publications, including  North American Review, Reading in Translation, and World Literature Today. The first edition of the anthology was named a “Best Book” by Poets & Writers. You can watch one of the ten events held for the book, a virtual event hosted by Seattle’s Third Place Books.

One of my favourite things about the publication is the number of wonderful guest-editors we get to work with. The first edition had Jane Hirshfield, the second edition had Cristina Rivera Garza, and the 2026 edition, which we’ve begun work on, will be guest-edited by Arthur Sze.

When I am done with this blog, I will start reading my own pile of entries for the 2026 edition.

So, what was I saying earlier? I miss writing here, and I hope to fix that in 2025. And why did I stop earlier? Overthinking, perhaps. Twitter? The craziness of the last years? Or a desire for something new. I did write and direct a documentary film last year, after all. And before that, in 2023, I was neck deep in some research project that became YorùbáVoice. In 2022, I moved countries, welcomed a new child, and hoped to spend more time in the United States so I can complete a number of book projects, one of which became my second collection Èṣù at the Library, and the other which became An African Abroad. 2021 was the pandemic, and so on. I also continue to work at OlongoAfrica, a platform I founded in 2020 to curate some literary, research, and translation projects on the continent; and at FlamingHydra, a subscription platform I co-own, where I also manage to continue to write.

Anyway, enough excuses. Let’s see how much this new year resolution holds.