Focusing on the context in which Okot p’Bitek’s double poem, Song of Lawino (1966) and Song of Ocol (1967), was written, published and received, this paper analyses how Okot’s particular position within the Anglophone literary space of East Africa and his own translations moulded the formal aspects of the poem. It seeks to shed light on the various influences and transfers – between languages, but also between the fields of literature and anthropology – that invite us to go beyond the original readings of the poem as an example of « authentically African » poetry. In doing so, the article aims to reflect on the role played by the poem in Okot’s call for a « cultural revolution » and its legacy in deconstructing the figure of the African writer as it was built through and by the University in the region.