Lateral texts and circuits of value: Okot p'Bitek's Song of Lawino and Wer pa Lawino

African writers are increasingly producing literary texts that appear almost simultaneously in two languages - an indigenous African language and English. One of these texts is often considered a translation while the other is said to be the original. As Harry Garuba has argued, this model does not adequately capture the relationship between these texts for several reasons, not least of all because this conventional description assumes a vertical relationship between the original and translation. To adequately deal with texts such as Song of Lawino and Wer per Lawino, we need to work with a model of lateral textuality that recognises each text as being inserted into a specific circuit of value that may not be identical with the circuit of value through which the other travels. Taking the idea of lateral textuality and Gikandi's identification of the different value accorded to Song of Lawino in East African literature in English in relation to the value accorded to Wer per Lawino within the tradition of "African writing in African languages," as our point of departure, this paper explores the different circuits of value in which these two texts have been inserted and the manner in which they have acquired value with each of them.