Annachiara Raia
Annachiara Raia has been University Lecturer in the LUCAS department of the Faculty of Humanities and at the African Studies Centre Leiden since March 2019.
The main focus of her research is Swahili literature and, in particular, the Swahili adaptation of one of the most widely travelled stories of mankind, the Islamic Story of Joseph, Qiṣat Yūsuf). This has allowed her to study 18th- and 19th-century Swahili manuscripts and encouraged her inquiries into the intertextual relations between texts, authorship and authorial interventions.
In Kenya, she worked with northern Swahili dialect poets in the Lamu archipelago (Lamu, Pate and Siu islands). The archipelago hosts also a sizeable community of Somali diaspora, who will be the focus of her future investigations from a historical and literary perspective. Her interest in the practices of composing and performing poetry have led her to view texts not as entities per se, but as travelling artworks entangled with their context and a network of artists. Annachiara is currently investigating the intellectual practices and knowledge production relating to dialogue texts. Her recent research focused on the polyhedral figure of Mahmoud Ahmed Abdulkadir, a still living imam and poet from Lamu, who collected the “literature of ideas” in his private library that has shaped his religious affiliation, education, knowledge and current role in the community he represents.
From 2017 to 2019, Annachiara was a research associate at the University of Bayreuth, where she pursued a double PhD program in African Languages and Literatures. Since January 2018, she has been a member of the editorial staff of Matatu Journal for African Culture and Society (Brill).
Keywords: African languages, comparative studies, Islamic poetry in Africa, orality and literacy, Swahili literature and intellectual practices
Dr. A. Raia's profile on the Leiden University website
Africa in the world - Rethinking Africa’s global connections
Collaboration and contestation in words: Dialogues and disputes in African social realities
Ustadh Mau Digital Archive (UMADA). Maktaba ya kidijitali ya Ustadh Mau
Book review of Ngugi wa Thiong'o, "The perfect nine: the epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi" (New York: The New Press, 2020) (2021)
A network of copies: transmission and textual variants of manuscript traditions from the J.W.T. Allen Collection (Dar es Salaam) (2021)
TTT - Things that talk - Joseph يوسف יוֹסֵף A wandering story (2021)
Between the lines: re-citing Qur’anic verses in Swahili manuscripts (2020)
Rewriting Yusuf : a philological and intertextual study of a Swahili Islamic manuscript poem (2020)
Travelling texts beyond the West : introduction (2020)
Texts, voices and tapes : mediating poetry on the Swahili Muslim Coast in the 21st century (2020)
Prayers uttered down on paper: a stylistic analysis of Swahili devotional lyrics (2020)
Angaliya Baharini, Mai Yaliyoko Pwani : the presence of the ocean in Mahmoud Ahmed Abdulakadir's poetry (2019)
Swahili palimpsests : the Muslim stories beneath Swahili compositions (2018)
A mosaic of scripts : Arabic script in Africa from a comparative perspective (2017)
Remarks on Swahili manuscripts in Arabic script : layout and orthography of the Utendi wa Yusuf (2014)
Rewriting Yusuf : a philological and intertextual study of a Swahili Islamic manuscript poem
Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, Archiv afrikanistischer Manuskripte 12, 2020
A. Raia
'A network of copies: transmission and textual variants of manuscript traditions from the J.W.T. Allen Collection (Dar es Salaam)'
In: R.H. Samsom; C. Vierke: 'One text, many forms: a comparative view of the variability of Swahili manuscripts', Hamburg: Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, 2021.
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'Between the lines: re-citing Qur’anic verses in Swahili manuscripts'
In: A. Brita; G. Ciotti; F. De Simini; A. Roselli: 'Copying manuscripts: textual and material craftsmanship', Hamburg: Universität Hamburg, Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, 2020.
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'Angaliya Baharini, Mai Yaliyoko Pwani : the presence of the ocean in Mahmoud Ahmed Abdulakadir's poetry'
In: F. Aiello; R. Gaudioso: 'LUGHA NA FASIHI. Scritti in onore e memoria di = Essays in honour and memory of Elena Bertoncini Zúbková', Napoli: Università degli Studi di Napoli "L'Orientale, 2019.
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'Remarks on Swahili manuscripts in Arabic script : layout and orthography of the Utendi wa Yusuf'
In: I. Kraska-Szlenk; B. Wójtowicz: 'Current research in African studies : papers in honour of Mwalimu Dr. Eugeniusz Rzewuski', Warsaw: Dom Wydawniczy Elipsa, 2014.
'Texts, voices and tapes : mediating poetry on the Swahili Muslim Coast in the 21st century'
in: Matatu, vol. 51, no. 1, pp. 139–168, 2020.
'Travelling texts beyond the West : introduction'
in: Asian journal of African studies, vol. 48, pp. 1-29, 2020.
'Prayers uttered down on paper: a stylistic analysis of Swahili devotional lyrics'
in: Journal for Islamic studies, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 102-140, 2020.
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'Swahili palimpsests : the Muslim stories beneath Swahili compositions'
in: Swahili forum, no. 25, pp. 16-41, 2018.
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'A mosaic of scripts : Arabic script in Africa from a comparative perspective'
in: Quaderni di studi arabi, nuova serie, no. 12, pp. 207-218, 2017.
Blogs by this author in the ASCL Africanist Blog: