2024/2025 Translator-in-Residence – Sawad Hussain

We are thrilled to announce Sawad Hussain as our first-ever Translator-in-Residence in our 40th anniversary year. 

For four decades, Wasafiri has platformed the voices of multilingual writers, and writing that traverses and transcends linguistic and geographical boundaries. We remain committed to forging new spaces and mapping new landscapes in contemporary international writing by nurturing and championing diverse, plural, and often overlooked voices and perspectives. Literature in/and translation is a vital bridge connecting cultures and ideas – one that captures the nuances and hierachies of languages – and this appointment aims to celebrate the art, craft, praxis, and labour of translation.

We are proud of the legacy and trajectory of our Writer-in-Residence programme, which has been running since 2018. So far, six writers have run workshops, salons, live events, and digital takeovers, offering Wasafiri readers worldwide the opportunity to be mentored and inspired. Previous residencies have featured Jessica Gaitán Johannesson’s exploration of climate emergency activism, Durre Shahwar’s focus on autofiction, and various poets contending with the canon and their cultural heritage. We are honoured that Sawad Hussain will be the first translator to take on this role. 

Commenting on her appointment, Sawad Hussain said: I’m grateful to be appointed as Wasafiri’s first Translator-In-Residence, during its fortieth anniversary year no less! My work has always been grounded in bringing voices from the so-called ‘margins’ to the fore, in platforming many centres as a counterweight to the dominant centres of publishing, translation and literature. Wasafiri and I are very much aligned in this vision, as evident in their tremendous work over the past four decades. I’m excited to stretch the definition of what it means to be a literary translator during my residency, delving into the potential futures of translation as a means of resisting hegemonic power structures – be they linguistic or industrial. 

Commenting on the appointment, Wasafiri's Editor and Publishing Director Sana Goyal said: 'We are honoured that the talented and dedicated Sawad Hussain is Wasafiri's first Translator-in-Residence. Translation opens windows to the world beyond us, and as we celebrate forty years of the magazine this year, we hope that this new direction in our Writer-in-Residence programme is a step further to solidifying our original mission statement of nurturing and platforming writing across worlds. I have no doubt that Sawad Hussain's workshops – and larger work – will bring new audiences to the world of Wasafiri.'

In the spirit of the magazine, during her six-month residency at Wasafiri, Sawad Hussain will curate and host three in-person and online writing workshops and events, and also craft her own work for publication with the magazine. Keep an eye out on our social media channels for more details. 

Sawad Hussain is a translator from Arabic whose work was shortlisted for The 2023 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation, and longlisted for The Moore Prize for Human Rights Writing. She is a judge for the Palestine Book Awards and the Armory Square Prize for Literary Translation. She has run translation workshops under the auspices of Shadow Heroes, Africa Writes, Shubbak Festival, the Yiddish Book Center, the British Library, and the National Centre for Writing. Her latest translations include The Djinn's Apple (by Djamila Morani) and The Book Censor's Library (by Bothayna al-Essa; co-translated with Ranya Abdelrahman). The latter title was recently longlisted for the 2024 National Book Award for Translated literature. A former Co-Chair of the Translator's Association (in the UK), she is committed to mentoring literary translators and developing the translation industry in general.