Akinloye Ojo, an assistant professor of comparative literature in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, has won a grant from the PEN Translation Fund, one of only 11 funded out of 139 applicants.
Ojo’s grant is for the translation of Afaimo and Other Poems (1972) the only poetry collection by Akimwumi Isola, a Nigerian novelist, playwright and one of the foremost figures of Yoruba literature.
A noted scholar, writer and teacher, Ojo is probably best known to the northeast Georgia community as the writer, producer and host of “African Perspectives,” a weekly radio show on WUGA-FM 91.7/97.9 FM with which he has been involved since 1997.
Ojo, also on the faculty of the linguistics program at UGA, teaches the Yoruba language and conducts research on applied linguistics and language pedagogy, among several areas. He is the author of several books, including the upcoming A Sociolinguistic and Phonological Analysis of English Words in Yoruba.
The PEN Translation Fund was established in 2003 with a gift from an anonymous donor concerned about the lack of translated literature in English. In the seven years of its existence, the fund has supported more than 72 translation projects from more than 30 languages.
