Fasiri Fasara Fasaha

Carmen McCain is a scholar, translator and Lecturer in African Studies at SOAS University of London. Her research centres on Hausa literature, popular culture and film, particularly the literary and media worlds of northern Nigeria. Her publications explore Hausa–English translation, Nollywood and Kannywood, censorship, religious and political expression, and the unequal infrastructures that shape which African-language texts reach wider audiences.

McCain’s translation practice is grounded in long-term engagement with Hausa literary culture and close collaboration with Hausa-speaking scholars and writers. She is currently working with Dr Zaynab Ango on an English translation of Balaraba Ramat Yakubu’s Wa Zai Auri Jahila? (Who Will Marry an Illiterate Girl?), a major Hausa novel about education, forced marriage and women’s struggle for autonomy.

Translations