Mose Njo

I’m building The Lisy Society, a nonprofit cultural organization, and Pepero, a narrative house, which aim to make language, knowledge, culture, and storytelling more accessible through long-term infrastructure rooted in Madagascar.

Along the way, I’ve:

Things I've done, I've attempted, I'm (still) doing or somehow gotten away with:
Talks & conversations
  • I've given talks at Duke, Johns Hopkins, UniversitĂ© de Lyon, ISCAM Business School in Madagascar, TEDx Manjakamiadana, and the National Library of Abidjan. Sometimes people even stayed for the Q&A.
  • I've shared panels and conference tables with writers like Karan Mahajan, Abhay Kumar, Francesca Mari, Nina Leger, Pierre Ducrozet, and Ilija Trojanow. On stage, I tried not to speak too much about the absence of the concept of time and how to stop time as it flew so fast. I failed.
Writing & publishing
  • I won an Honorable Mention for a short story in the Africa@2050 Climate Fiction Competition. I like to say I came in first—from the last. (Also: the only non-native English speaker. Just saying.)
  • I published Lisy Mianjoria, a sci-fi novel in Malagasy. It's still selling, still finding readers, and still sending me lovely messages.
  • I was published in Europunk, a French sci-fi anthology from Realities Inc. Yes, it's as punk as it sounds.
  • I've ghostwritten scripts for feature films and multi-season series in Europe. You've probably seen something I've written—you just didn't know it. Just kidding.
  • I've been translated into Romanian (Convorbiri Literare), German (LCB Diplomatique), and likely misquoted in a few other languages.
  • I've been published (twice) in Future Science Fiction Digest, with both stories translated by Allison M. Charette.
  • I've been selected for the Lunar Codex—which means my work is literally headed to the Moon. (That sentence still surprises me.)
Translation & language
  • I translated Roberto Zucco into Malagasy. It's a play that doesn't ask politely.
  • I translated 100 Great Indian Poems into Malagasy and French. I also translated The Magic of Madagascar by H.E. Abhay K., the Indian Ambassador to Madagascar. I like to mention it when I want to sound impressive.
  • I helped draft the Charte de la professionnalisation du livre—a document meant to help shape the future of Madagascar's book industry. I was there as a writer. And possibly as someone who asks too many questions.
  • I didn't mean to join the coordination team of that WordPress-in-Malagasy thing as the "translation supervisor" or whatever they call it—I just showed up, asked too many questions, and they gave me a role. Now I help localize WordPress in Malagasy and pretend I know what I'm doing. (It's going surprisingly well.)
Cinema
  • I received a scholarship to study independent cinema at the Art-on-the-Run Film School in Berlin. I never ran. Not even once. But God, did I walk.
  • I wrote and directed a short film for the social enterprise Le Relais, created by AbbĂ© Pierre. (The double B in AbbĂ© isn't what you think.)
  • I started Filmada to map Malagasy cinema with fellow Malagasy filmmakers in the USA, China, and Madagascar. It’s no longer on pause. Filmada is slowly becoming a living cinematic map of Madagascar—films, filmmakers, places, themes, and audiovisual memory—built carefully, one fragment at a time.
Games
  • We created Lisy's Dream—a teenager and I—a video game about a girl with a secret and a world with too many doors. The first demo was shown publicly at the Festival des DĂ©veloppeurs de Jeux VidĂ©o at the Institut Français de Madagascar, which seems like a mistake—but a delicious one.
Art, education & cultural work
  • I was a jury member for Diary Nofy, a project creating storybooks for Malagasy children and spreading a love of reading.
  • I created an installation for La Nuit Malgache at the Institut Français de Madagascar and exhibited a conceptual artwork at Hakanto Contemporary in Antananarivo.
  • I've taught creative writing to children, teens, and one memorable group with a 70+ year-old who wrote with more fire than anyone.
Projects & infrastructure
  • I run Pepero—a narrative house offering creative direction, interactive experiences, and systems thinking for brands, institutions, and cultural projects. It's where the work becomes a service.
  • I created Atlisy, a fast, searchable Malagasy–French–English dictionary and the foundation of a broader knowledge project about Madagascar.
  • I once built a platform for books and audiobooks with a bilingual dictionary, entirely on my own. It didn't work out. I'm rebuilding it anyway. Right now—it's called Lamasinina. She insisted.
Recognition & representation
  • I represented Madagascar at the Jeux de la Francophonie in Abidjan. Mohamed Mbougar Sarr was there too. He won the Goncourt. I didn't. And I won't.
Other curious ventures
  • According to ChatGPT and Perplexity, I'm a "Madagascan Renaissance Man." Google Gemini disagrees. But you know how Gemini is.
  • I've been counseling an interior design agency. Such a refreshing experience. And sometimes, they even listen.
Music
  • I make music. Discreetly—very discreetly. I write, compose, and co-arrange under ko18. One of my songs, "ara mitsangana", carried by the fragile, luminous, and quietly moving voice of the visual artist Miangaly Elia, was nominated at the RDJ Awards, Madagascar's major music awards. My dream is to go further: a musical has taken its first small step at the IFM Lab of the Institut Français de Madagascar—still only a beginning, with many paths ahead—and perhaps one day a studio, something between A24 and Ghibli, rooted in Madagascar.