Freedom

This essay begins with three brief examples that show how the liberatory dimensions of translation are expressed on the page – perhaps more explicitly than ever before – by contemporary African writers and publishers committed to multilingual readerships on the African continent. The second part of the essay then shifts beyond the page, to reflection on the limits of conceptual neologisms within existing systems of academic knowledge production and the history/theory/practice of literary criticism. Reference is made here to material contexts of higher education in four African cities (Abidjan, Abomey-Calavi, Dakar and Yaoundé) and ongoing collective research as part of the AFRIUNI ‘Creative Lives of African Universities’ project.