Dr Ida Hadjivayanis

Ida Hadjivayanis is a Senior Lecturer in Swahili at SOAS University of London. She earned her PhD in 2010 with a thesis titled Norms of Swahili Translations in Tanzania: An Analysis of Selected Translated Prose. Her teaching and research focus on Swahili language acquisition, translation studies, and Area Studies, with a particular emphasis on the Swahili coast. She has translated Dhulma (2025) and Peponi (2022), the Swahili versions of Nobel Laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah’s novels Theft (2025) and Paradise (1994), respectively. 

Ida Hadjivayanis is a scholar of Swahili language and translation whose work bridges African Studies and Indian Ocean histories. She collaborated with Salha Hamdani on memoirs that offer a lived perspective of an ordinary woman on the Swahili littoral from the 1910s to the 1960s. The books—Salama binti Rubeya: Memories from the Swahili Littoral (2025) and Salama binti Rubeya: Simulizi kutoka Mwambao wa Bahari ya Hindi (2025)—foreground voices often excluded from historical narratives, highlighting how everyday lives are shaped by broader historical forces. 

Ida’s research sits at the intersection of translation, the Indian Ocean world, and African Studies. Her academic publications focus on translation and the Swahili diaspora, while her public speaking engagements explore themes such as multilingualism in Africa, decolonisation in translation, unequal encounters across the Indian Ocean, and Swahili’s role as a global lingua franca. She actively supports initiatives that centre Swahili and is the co-founder of the annual SOAS Baraza Swahili Conference.