Stephanie Kitchen

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Stephanie Kitchen, co-director of the African Books Collective, spoke with the Independent Publishers Guild podcast about thestory and work of the organisation in improving the profile and availability of books from across Africa. She also talks about thevisibility of African books and about what more can be done to get African voices heard on a global stage.

Listen tothe  Independent Publishers Guild podcast here. 

David Mills

David Mills is Associate Professor at the Department of Education at the University of Oxford. He is also Deputy Director of theOxford Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE), and Vice-President of Kellogg College, Oxford. Having trained as an anthropologist, Davidfocused on studying higher education. As part of this, he writes about publishing practices in African universities, and how they are beingchanged by the pressures and incentives of a global research economy. Here he speaks with Jatinder Padda about how he came to his interestin African publishing. 

David, a belated welcome to ABC! We’re delighted you’ve joined the team, bringing your scholarly expertise on publishing practicesin higher education. You took up the role at the start of 2023. How are you finding it so far?

I have long admired ABC’s ground-breaking work, so it was an honour to become one of its three directors, along with Nii Parkes andExecutive Director Stephanie Kitchen. It has been a very steep learning curve for me. There have been a lot of changes at ABC, and ourchallenge is to build on all that the previous directors and team have ably achieved, whilst anticipating a future of rapidly changingtechnological needs.

As well as supporting African publishers, ABC distributes books through a whole range of international intermediaries, and through its newe-book platform. ABC needs to be able to access and provide a whole range of data (from book pricing to ONIX metadata) to these differentstakeholders. Nii’s and my job is to support and work with Stephanie as she steers ABC through these challenges.

How did you come across African Books Collective?

Living in Oxford, I was vaguely aware of the Collective and its connections to the city. It is only when I got interested in Africanacademic publishing that I began to realise all that had been achieved since the 1980s, both through ABC and grants to the Bellagiopublishing network. I have come to learn and appreciate the work of the pioneer African publishers.

What made you turn your ethnographic lens to higher education? And then why focus on African higher education?

As a doctoral student, I arrived in Uganda and rented a room with the university’s deputy librarian. I was immediately intrigued by Makerereand its academic coloniality. Its student halls of residence had been built to echo Oxbridge-style colleges.  It was an eliteuniversity model that was already out of place in Britain. Its legacy continues to shape student life today. It made me realise the powerfulrole that campus cultures play within universities. I spent a lot of time at the university bookshop and at Fountain Press, keen to read thevoices of Ugandan scholars that never reached Western journals and presses.

An area that comes up in your research is ‘predatory publishing’. Could you speak about that a little, explaining the term and whyit is important?

Yes, I don’t like the term at all. The term was coined by a US librarian called Jeffrey Beall who saw it as his personal mission to shameprofit-oriented commercial open access publishers. He began assembling a list of such publishers that became increasingly controversial. Itfrustrates me that the discourse continues to get deployed across the sector, by academics and policy makers alike.  It is used todenigrate and dehumanise a whole swathe of publishers and journals. Yes, there are some commercial publishers that do no real peer-review oreditorial control, but they could be seen as providing a subversive service – of sorts – rather than ‘preying’ on researchers. Some mayadopt ethically problematic practices. Many more are struggling in difficult conditions to build publishing capacity and credibility. It’s acrude label that doesn’t get at all the different issues involved in publishing. I would rather we didn’t use it.

The challenges publishers in Africa face are well documented, including global marginalisation of African/black voices, the lack of alevel playing field with their peer publishers in other continents, lagging technologies, lack of distribution across the continent,unsupportive governments, and sometimes donor policies in higher education. What needs to happen within Africa /outside Africa to allowparity of voice in global higher education spaces?

Your question cuts to the heart of the issue. The challenge for African publishers is to negotiate the deep epistemic injustices andmaterial inequalities built into colonial-era knowledge systems. In the future, African governments will have to work together to fund andsupport publishing and research infrastructures, and so university policies will be able to incentivise African-centred publishing. Thiswill be the best way to build regional and continental research and knowledge ecosystems. One day African journals will be fairlyrepresented in global citation indexes and have the same reputational prestige as their Northern counterparts. It will take time but thetables will turn.

Africa as a continent has the highest youth population globally. To what extent can the potential of these young people be realisedthrough publishing to share knowledge and new ideas? Or do you think knowledge production via other online avenues provides alternativeoptions?

I am probably biased, as I work in a university, but I have an absolute conviction that life-long learning is at the heart ofself-formation. Education is not just about skills and jobs. And knowledge is key to the journey.

Are you able to share any plans you have for ABC? Are there any aspects of work ABC publishers are doing that you would like to seereplicated, accepting of course that the publishers are autonomous with their own missions, markets, and challenges?

E-books and digital publishing offers huge opportunities for Africa’s publishers, as people change their reading habits. Social media allowsauthors to reach new audiences. We have to be quick to adapt.

Any final thoughts to share with our audience?

I enjoy learning about our African publishers and the amazing things they are doing. We are doing a special issue in ‘Logos’ on Africanpublishing , full of interviews with publishers across the continent. Do look out for it.

Nii Ayikwei Parkes

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Nii Ayikwei Parkes is an award-winning British-Ghanaian writer, an editor, a publisher, and a festival programmer. His literarybackground, coupled with his business experience and reaching across different communities, make him a thrilling addition to the AfricanBooks Collective crew. Here he speaks with Jatinder Padda about his writing life and his ambitions for ABC. 

Nii, welcome to ABC! We are very excited to have you join the team. You have such a varied literary background, and we’re glad tohave that experience come to ABC. But let’s start with the words. How did you come to writing poetry and stories? How much was Ga spoken athome, and to what extent do you think you absorbed its rhythms and phrases and wove them with your own use of English?

Ga was always the primary language spoken at home regardless of where we lived, so I was bilingual pretty much from birth since TV inEngland was in English. Having two languages, I feel, always makes you attuned to the music of languages and the nuances of meaning –those for me are the foundations of storytelling. I am not really aware of absorbing Ga into my English as Ga came first; I simply have myown way of using English which is influenced by the hybrid philosophy of existence that my heritage has given me.

You have written that you grew up in South London and that your literary foundations were West African, as you read work from Ghana,Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Gambia. How did you come to access those West African works? What kind of access to African produced literaturewas there? Did the world village atmosphere of South London also shape your development as a writer?

I started school in South London, but my parents have always had a good library. If we are intentional, it is always possible to have goodaccess to African-produced literature. However, most of the rest of my school career was in Ghana, where thanks to policies that startedwith our first president, Kwame Nkrumah, literature from Africa was always part of our world.

What led you to set up flipped eye publishing in 2001? What have you learned from running a publishing company about promoting booksinto a book world dominated by corporates and sharing voices that are often marginalized?

I started flipped eye publishing because I was seeing writers in the literature scene in the UK who I believed were incredibly talented butwere not appreciated by the larger publishing industry because the industry was deficient in the cultural vocabulary to appreciate a widerange of expressive forms and approaches. Over the years, I’ve mainly learned that the corporates are opportunistic and will adapt topublish anything once they find they can make money from it. In that way small publishers carry a unique power to shape the industry byproving that what the corporates label “unsellable” is very much sellable. You just have to look at how many Black and working-class poetsare being published now, for instance. That is purely down to small publishers and regional publishers.

How did you come to be involved with the AKO Caine Prize and World Literature Today? Were these steps into a more clearlyinternational literary space intentional or happenstance?

My work has always been about elevating and facilitating access for work from the margins. That includes emerging authors from the Africancontinent and work in translation (which is criminally under-supported in the Anglophone world), so it was only logical that I would end upassociated with these organisations. I would say it’s part serendipity, part willingness; I didn’t apply for those roles, my work brought meinto contact with them and I was very honoured to accept the roles.

How did you come across African Books Collective?

I’ve been aware of ABC for a while; I don’t remember exactly what my first exposure was, but I remember that when we published SefiAtta’s News From Home at flipped eye publishing in 2010, ABC helped us sell copies at Goteborg under the auspices of theNoma Award, which the short story collection had won. Also, when I supported Meshack Asare’s The Brassman’s Secret to winthe Neustadt Prize in 2015, we dealt with Sub-Saharan Publishing and ABC.

Africa as a continent has the highest youth population globally. Do you see opportunities in this space for developing culturalindustries, which are often and elsewhere associated with young people? In connection with this, do you see reasons for hope in Africanpublishing?

Why would there not be hope? Where there is youth, there are new ideas; where there are new ideas there is endless hope and potential. Ibelieve in the indigenous brilliance and expression of Africa’s youth. In fact, I believe that sometimes when we try to define how theyshould move forward, we actually hold them back.

The challenges publishers in Africa face are well documented, including global marginalisation of African/black voices, the lack of alevel playing field with their peer publishers in other continents, lagging technologies, lack of distribution across the continent,unsupportive governments, and sometimes donor policies in areas of arts/creative industries and higher education. What needs to happen towithin Africa /outside Africa to allow parity of voice in global cultural spaces?

We have the task of making sure that there is enough of our creativity circulating effectively within the continent before we explore whathappens outside. Unfortunately, as the governments are not focussed on the creative industries as a rule, much of the change will need to bedriven by private enterprise and we will really need to leverage technology to make that possible. There is a lot of work to do and we needto dig in and get it done.

Are you able to share any plans you have for ABC? Are there any aspects of work ABC publishers are doing that you would like to seereplicated, accepting of course that the publishers are autonomous with their own missions, markets, and challenges?

I am very interested in anything that removes the false barriers that the colonial languages have placed in the continent, so I’m veryexcited to see what we can begin to do to push translation and other forms of collaboration that can circumvent the physical distributionchallenges that exist on the continent.

Any final thoughts to share with our audience?

I’m here to contribute; our audience can support by being advocates for the books we help distribute and continuing to be avid and dedicatedreaders.

Photo: Nii A Parkes by Daniela Incoronato

Kelwyn Sole

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Kelywn Sole is an award-winning South African poet and Professor Emeritus at the University of Cape Town. Fellow poet, Jacques Coetzee,interviewed him about his new collection Skin Rafts and his work. This conversation grew out of what was meant to be a briefexchange, possibly for publication on an online blog dedicated to poetry. However, Kelwyn’s responses were more expansiveand generous than expected. Afterward, both Jacques  and Kelwyn felt that the entire interview should be published.

Jacques: The meanings ascribed to skin are at the centre of so much discourse, both here in South Africa and abroad. With this in mind,would you like to say something about Skin Rafts as a title? Does this collection feel like a new departure, or is it acontinuation of older themes and conversations?

Kelwyn: The idea of ‘bobbing on a raft of skin’ first occurred in a poem in a much earlier book of mine: I onlyrealised this while I was doing the final edits on this one. So my attraction to this trope must have been ongoing for a while. I thinkits meaning is in part about the precariousness and fragility of existence, the fallibility of who we are—the title of my previous book, Walking,Falling,also points in this direction. On one level, the title’s about human existence, about floating over something which can be unknown andfrightening … the experience of living, in short. Yet, in my concrete experience I’ve found that being at sea in a small boat is not onlyfrightening but invigorating as well. In this way Skin Rafts is about how just being alive, trying to live, is full of darknessbut also light. Fear and joy simultaneously.

 In addition, given the history of the land into which I was born, it also has to be about skin, literally. We live in a country whichhas always been obsessed and prescriptive about who we are, based on appearance. So: identity, skin colour, race. One’s skin is both athin covering and given enormous weight as a foundational, explanatory cultural and personal principle. But I’ve never been content withthis, either in apartheid South Africa or with the reversed racial myths predominant now. What we’re still doing too often, I feel, isjust to invert the positive and negative values given to racial stereotypes, rather than question them. Skin Rafts as a titleseems fitting because I needed to say something about the wave of identity politics we are experiencing at the moment; and try to relateto, tease out and either agree with or criticise its common assumptions in some of the poems. My view of identity is from the left, butfrom a group in the left that is ambivalent and critical about some of the more conservative forms of identity politics doing the rounds.Class is downplayed in these versions, consistently. Quite a few of them have been imported into South Africa online from—especially butnot only—the United States, and fit neatly into the aspirations and senses of self of the new middle class. In the process, they ignoremany of Africa’s own thinkers who wrote about race and class, such as [Amílcar] Cabral and [Samora] Machel, as well as someone like FrantzFanon, who was scathing about what he called the comprador bourgeoisie.

Hopefully this book, like my previous ones, tries to conceptualise the melange of issues—class, race, gender, region and so on—that havean effect on our lives. But people never just think, breathe and perceive just politics—while politics is a constant issue, I’vetried to show in poems that other human concerns always impinge on its attempts to straitjacket us into one or the other politicalconformity. So I’ve also worked on love poetry, landscape poetry, poetry of our everyday experiences and, more recently, my own versionsof eco-poetry …. as well as trying to show how poetic form has its own politics.

 
Jacques: Your poetry tends to steer away from the confessional mode, and this is something you address directly in the opening of ‘MyCountry’. And yet, in Skin Rafts, you have included some profoundly beautiful poems that clearly reflect your own personalexperience. How would you describe the relationship between your writing voices and your personal experience?

Kelwyn: ‘Confessional’ poetry, especially from North America, was a very visible trend when I started reading morewidely as an undergraduate in the 1970s. It influenced me to some extent: even now, uneven as he can be, some of John Berryman’sbrilliance in his Dream Songs and Sonnets to Chris leaves me in awe; and I think Sylvia Plath’s penetrating formalinnovations have been downplayed, maybe due to the over-focus on what she symbolised, in the early analysis of her work. I think, however,that I have been more influenced by a poetry that did not have a predominantly confessional goal. Early on, it was the Black MountainSchool that attracted my attention, as well as those poets whose early work shows its influence: especially Charles Olson, but also peoplelike Amiri Baraka and Denise Levertov. I’ve had lots of other influences though. Among these, I found some of the people published in thePenguin Modern European Poets very exciting as models, especially Hans Magnus Enzensberger; as well as African poets such as Okigbo and UTam’si and one or two of the Black Consciousness poets whom I knew in Jo’burg at the time.

I think most poems weave a poet’s personal experience into the text, in a more or less fictionalised and implicit manner. I think that’seven true of those postmodern variants which try to escape its strictures. So, to answer the other aspect of your question, my personalexperience is threaded into my work, although it is never there in an unmediated form, or not at least partly fictionalised.

 
Jacques: I am particularly moved by your desire to speak of (or for?) “the ugly creatures”, by which I assume you often include humanbeings among others. What is it about ugliness that fascinates you, and do you think that poetry can (or should) somehow redeem ortransform it?

Kelwyn: I think the term ‘ugly’ in that poem you’re talking about relates to my abiding interest in whomever andwhatever belongs to what the novelist Thomas Pynchon calls the ‘preterite’, in other words the opposite of the elite … the anti-elite, if Istart to imbue the term with my own political purpose. The preterite occurs in many forms throughout history, human as well as thenon-human. That’s why in this collection there’s a snake poem; I’ve also written recently about scorpions and suchlike. To me, one of theprincipal roles of a poet is to try to understand those parts of our surroundings and consciousness that are ill-regarded; to look intothe darkest corners of opinion and response. Socially—and in a lot of my critical work—I’ve focused on the marginalised, the downtrodden,the ignored. It’s a contingent, fluid object of concern, because neglect happens in many ways, as do the structures that define andsupport privilege. In South Africa, these structures have been set in place by centuries of oppression, but are shifting at present quitequickly, I think; hence the emergence of a poem such as ‘Comprador’ in Skin Rafts.

As one who has sometimes been offered and sometimes had to fight for the space to speak and the means to share his viewpoint, I’mfascinated about questions such as: Who cannot speak? What is not being spoken about? Who is speaking on behalf of whom? What does thatleave out of purview? Put in academic terms, I’m very sceptical of hegemonies, both old or new: my immediate impulse tends to beiconoclastic. I have an urge to challenge comfortable and self-justifying beliefs. Even before one gets to the actual poems, that’svisible in my book titles—Absent Tongues, The Blood of Our Silence (jazz fans might notice the reworking of some albumtitles here!). There’s no final resolution possible for such questions and concerns, but that doesn’t alter the need to keep asking them.

 
Jacques: Is there a particular kind of insight you would like to kindle in the readers of your work, or is uncertainty a better wordhere? I am thinking of your remark, on Facebook, that only those who have forgotten their names can have a real conversation.

Kelwyn: I’ve always thought that any poetic style, and the aesthetic belief that accompanies it, is always an attemptby the poet to be read in a particular way; even though no one can ever completely succeed in fixing reception as they desire. I am nodifferent. But having said that, I don’t consciously aim at any social group when my writing’s in process. More generally, to beviable to the public in future, I believe South African poets have to learn to straddle as many of our communities in their concerns aspossible, even if we’re just writing in English. There are multiple audiences in South Africa. A poem is a bit like a pebble dropped in apond: if you’re any good, the ripples move outwards into multiple spheres of affect, and resonate with and beyond the local into theglobal. If it’s a good poem, that is.

If I am attempting to address and influence a particular readership, it’s more in the form and the style of my work: in otherwords, the techniques I use. I like uncertain and provocative narrators, for a start. At times I use variations of voice and focalisationwithin, and between, poems. I sometimes try to move between somewhat differing perspectives on my subject matter, as well as experiment withchanges of address; again, within and between poems. This is in order to break up what I’d want to call the smoothness of thereading experience. I’m hoping first and foremost to deny readers the tendency to be lulled into believing that they should respond only toart that treads the well-worn paths they’re used to. Secondly, I’m hoping to confound the tendency in our literary culture to slot writersinto those stereotyped notions we’ve all been fed by the literary and political apparatchiks as to who we are and, therefore, what we shouldwrite about. Not only that, but also our preconceptions about what can be defined quickly, and facilely, as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in poetry andother forms of art. Too often people are still being fed one or the other canon as ‘good’—among conservative white critics, this is theEnglish, especially the British, canon; but it’s not the only one. Our grasp of aesthetics has to become more transnational, I think. Beingtold what not to say and how not to write is like a red rag to a bull, to me!

In terms of audience, in quite a few poems I’m trying to nudge readers into being surprised, into double-takes, into rethinking andreimagining their own reactions to the subject matter: to get them to think, ‘what was that again?’ This is nothing new—Milton uses it inthe way he manipulates lines and meaning in Paradise Lost, for instance. I’m hoping at times to get readers into thinking aboutthe world more dynamically, more acutely. This is also nothing new—it’s one of the goals of metropolitan Modernism, in its earlier moreradical phase. In this quest, there are devices I find useful, like the space of the page, unexpected juxtapositions, going off ontangents, finding the unusual but apt image. I don’t like closure in poems, even though I like decisive endings. In my view, an unsettledand unsettling, continuously questing aspect is an integral part of any poetic which wants to call itself socially progressive.

We all inhabit multiple identities. Given my own views and programme, too much of what I’m starting to see in poetry now is a search forsome form of true consciousness or bedrock of belonging; coupled with a notion that an individual writer or performer should try andexpress the views of their own community (however this is defined) without caveats. My concern is that a very particular politicaldiscourse and notion of what poetry is have become over-predominant these days and are side-lining other equally interesting forms ofpoetry expression. There’s a lot of emphasis on expressions of group solidarity, on poetry as a site of healing, onessentialist notions of identity. Which is fine, so long as it doesn’t cancel out poetry’s other possibilities.

 
Jacques: Birds and other animals are not anthropomorphised in these poems, but there are moments when they seem to point towards otherpossibilities for being: I am thinking of the shrike with the pauper’s eye, and the imagined speech of the bird in ‘Birding’. Would you liketo say more about the way birds in particular speak in these poems? How has bird-watching influenced your work, especially for thiscollection?

Kelwyn: I do sometimes anthropomorphise animals in poems, but when I do the meanings most often reflect back towardsthe human. There might be an attempt to see the non-human in a new light, but it must needs resonate in humans. That ‘pauper’s eye’ on theshrike, for example, refers not only to a rapacious bird but also our own impulses towards greed and excess, that which causes hunger andlack for others—the endless recycling of money, power and status that motivates misery. The other example you cite, ‘Birding’, serves adifferent purpose: the bird is ‘telling’ the birder how little he can understand of a bird’s existence—and those humans include the poem’sreaders and, if you think about it, me as I’m writing the poem. I have a weakness for displaying narrative and perceptual conundrums suchas this. 

It doesn’t mean I, or anyone else, can begin to understand non-human perceptions and intelligence. Not at all. There’s been someinteresting scientific work and popular writing, especially recently, on the amount and ways in which animal senses and experiences mightexceed and differ from ours. Those which first caught my attention were on whales, octopi, bird migration; but there’s so much more comingout. For instance the most intelligent animal on earth, so far as we know, is a bird—the New Caledonia Crow, a creator and manipulator oftools. Our own Green-backed Heron is a fisherman, dropping flies in the water. At the moment I’m busy reading a book about the culture ofwhales and dolphins, and ‘culture’ is absolutely the right word to use. It’s time we learned to value our fellow inhabitants on thisplanet and recognise their age-old wisdoms.  

As far as birds are concerned, Alan Finlay asked me a similar question in a recent New Coin interview, and I guess my answer isstill in essence the same … it’s a similarity in the process and how one uses one’s mind and actions. In bird watching, you can and mustprepare yourself by studying birds by reading, and so on: however, you can do this all you like at home, but you’ll find a lot of thelearning happens when you’re out in the veld with binoculars and sore feet … that milieu where there’s no guarantee what will happen—whetherthere’ll be birds, no birds, or what birds might come into view.  

Analogically, in poetry what’s required is not only practising one’s skill in front of the computer or page but also trying to put oneselfin a position to experience some of the lives of others. Too many poets these days have to make their living in universities, and even ifthey travel may forget that the majority of the world lives differently. You have to live differently yourself, from time to time.Moreover, you can’t make the poem come on demand—you rewrite, you let it churn around in your subconscious … and if and when it eventuallydoes pop up (sometimes when you least expect it) it has a maddening tendency to head off in unexpected directions. That’s great!

Put simply: both poem and bird appear on their own terms. They teach you that ego isn’t enough. You need to go deeper, go outside, stayaware of what’s alive around you. And that still doesn’t guarantee any certainty. Both are practices where the unexpected always looms. Tome, that’s the exhilaration, how you acquire the craft—not the ‘finished’ poem product, or the new bird sighting ticked. It’s inthe very process itself of acquiring skill and knowledge. 

Speaking of the increasing interest in my poems relating to eco-politics and the lives of animals, I can say my move to Cape Town andeventual experience of the sea were important. At some point after coming down to the Cape I was galvanised by the social theorists [Peter]Linebaugh and [Marcus] Rediker, who point out that we have to treat oceans as continents rather than the empty spaces between continents:they’re redolent with life and movement, human and otherwise. And shortly after coming across this idea, I went to sea on a small boat forthe first time. It’s no surprise that I find this joy I’ve mentioned especially present when I’m pelagic birding, which brings us back towhere we started, ‘bobbing on a raft of skin’… .

There’s one thing further. Given how eco-systems work, I’m finding that interest in any one aspect leads you on to others. My interest insnakes, for instance, began because I thought that, well, birders have to move quietly through the veld, so one needs to know what oneencounters, whether it’s dangerous or not, how to react in a way that causes least harm. Once you move among the other beings of our naturalworld, it’s impossible to draw a line and stop wondering or learning. Everything connects to everything else.

Kelwyn Sole was born in Johannesburg and has lived there as well as in Namibia, Botswana, and London. He now lives in Cape Town and isa Professor Emeritus at the University of Cape Town. He has won multiple awards for his poetry and critical articles, including the SouthAfrican Literary Award (SALA), the Olive Schreiner Prize, a DALRO Award, and two Thomas Pringle Awards. His poetry and critical work havebeen widely anthologised, and he has edited a selection of South African poetry for the U.S. journal The Common.Skin Rafts and other titles by Sole areavailable throughAfrican BooksCollective.

Jacques Coetzee is an award-winning South African poet, and a well-known singer-song writer. Books, includingCoetzee’s 2022 Ingrid Jonker Prize award-winnerAn Illuminated Darkness, areavailable through African Books Collective.

Image: Kelwyn Sole. Photographer: Liesl Jobson. 

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Henry Chakava

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East African Publishers, Kenya

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nAfter graduating from the University of Nairobi in 1972, Henry Chakava was looking at postgraduate scholarshipnoffers from local and international universities. While thinking through his options, his lecturer at the Department of Literature,nProfessor Andrew Gurr, arranged a temporary job at the Nairobi office of Heinemann Educational Books Limited (HEB). This temporary jobninstead became a life dedicated to books as he fell in love with publishing.n

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nBeginning as an apprentice in 1972, Henry Chakava rapidly rose through the HEB ranks to become Managing Director in 1976. He retired inn2000 and was appointed Chairman of the Board of Directors of East African Educational Publishers Limited, Heinemann’s successor.n

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nAfter initially starting as a net importer of books from the United Kingdom (UK), HEB began local production, growing a list whichnincorporated variety, including indigenous language books. Books by Africans, from Africa, about Africa, and with a primary Africannmarket were increasingly gaining demand. Along with former HEB Managing Director, Bob Markham, Chakava set up Tinga Tinga, whichnfocused on African books. The model involved reviewing the Kenyan catalogue, selecting books that would be of interest to a globalnaudience, and then shipping and stocking them in the UK for global distribution. Despite the slow uptake, it was hailed by those whonbenefited, especially scholars. So, when the idea to set up the African Books Collective was mooted in 1985, he embraced itnwholeheartedly. As part of our research into ABC’s foundation, tonmark our 30th anniversary, last year we asked those present at the beginning of this hugely important initiative a few questions.nHere is what we learnt from Henry Chakava… n

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nHow did you come to know the individuals/organisations that came to make up ABC at the start?n

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nThe 1980s was a period that saw a rising interest in African book publishing, both in Africa and abroad. Book-related events such asnconferences and exhibitions would be organised in Africa, the UK and Europe, and these efforts culminated in the formation of ABC.n

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nOne of the key founders of ABC, Hans Zell, who was the first manager, has meticulously documented the events leading to the establishment ofnABC. But what I can say is that two ‘Bookweek Africa’ events and exhibitions held at the Africa Centre in London, in 1982 and in 1985,nplayed a significant role in the eventual establishment of ABC.n

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nThere were also other events at the time which were a product of these collective efforts: the first Zimbabwe International Book Fair inn1983 and the Development of Autonomous African Publishing Capacity seminar organized by the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, in Arusha,nTanzania, in April 1984. Among other issues, there were discussions about the need for more effective marketing of African publishednbooks in the UK, Europe, and North America, and the need for collective action. I was a participant at that Arusha seminar, whichneffectively articulated issues relating to African books and African publishers venturing further afield.n

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nWith the support of Swedish SIDA and some other donor organizations, an ‘African Publishers Working Group Meeting on Collective ExportnMarketing and Promotion’ was convened at the Grafton Hotel, London from 13 – 16 October 1985. It had representatives from 11 Africannpublishers, including from Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Ghana, and Senegal. This was the gathering that led to the formation ofnAfrican Books Collective Limited, formally registered as a UK company limited by guarantee in January 1990, with actual tradingnactivities starting in May.n

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nWhat interested you about the initiative, what opportunities did you see, and how quickly did you agree to join up?n

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nMy tenure as MD of Heinemann saw the company drastically change its trading and operational models, especially with regard tondiversified publishing. I strongly believed that an Africa-based publishing firm had the moral and philosophical obligation to publishnlocally generated content, which would serve the continent better. At the same time, although I was working in a multinational,nHeinemann supported free thought, thanks to the progressive mindset of the Chairman, Alan Hill. I was therefore able to articulate mynideas during the various book events in Africa and Europe and warmed up to the 1985 discussions in London.n

n

nTo me, this was a great opportunity for African publishers to explore the uncharted world, so to speak. It was a good chance to enablenAfrican-published authors to showcase their talent far and wide. Through this initiative, the world would get to know that, indeed, greatnwriting was coming out of Africa. And certainly, it would provide a new revenue stream for the struggling publishers and, by extension,nauthors. In particular, it would bring in the much needed foreign exchange. So I could only imagine how vibrant ABC would grow, surmount thenchallenges of having to plead with Western booksellers to have African-published books stocked in their stores, among other distributionnchallenges.n

n

nEach of the founding members contributed £1,000, a considerable sum for independent publishers in 1990. Did this investmentngive you pause as the ABC model was untested?n

n

nIndeed, £1,000 was a substantial amount of money at the time. Thankfully, my own £1,000 was paid by the outfit I have just mentioned, TinganTinga.nBut most of the founding publishers were struggling with a myriad of financial challenges. Yet, the resolve was strong among all of us. Nonhurdle would stand in our way. We were determined to experiment with the idea and the outfit, work diligently to make it a success, andnensure its sustainability.n

n

In the end, we were vindicated.

n

Do you recall the early challenges? And how did you tackle them?

n

No new initiative is short of challenges, and ABC faced some headwinds during its formative years.

n

nOne of the challenges was to develop and publish books that would meet international standards. Professional book editors and proof readersnwere very few, facilities for book production in Africa were not as advanced as in Europe, and printing high quality products locally wasnalso not guaranteed. It was therefore rather difficult to have a competitive edge against other products published in the UK and other partsnof Europe, America, and Australia.n

n

nWarehousing was also a challenge. In the first place, rental premises in London have always been prohibitively expensive. Yet, ABC wasnoperating on a shoe-string budget, mainly supported by donors such as SIDA of Sweden, the Canadian CIDA, and the Rockefeller Foundation,namong others. We could therefore not take up a big space, however much we wanted to have huge stocks from all the participating publishers.n

n

nThen there was the issue of creating a workable distribution model, with a base in London, but targeting Europe, Australia, and NorthnAmerica.n

n

nWe also had to contend with the challenge of balancing between over-stocking and out-of-stock. On the one hand, we did not want to have hugenstocks due to constraints of space, yet on the other, we were wary of disappointing our few and faithful customers by running out of stock,nespecially on key titles. It was a delicate balancing act.n

n

nDue to economies of scale, the ABC model did not lend itself to children’s books, which was sad because one of the strengths of EAEP was innchildren’s literature. At the same time, I strongly believed (and I still do) that the best way to showcase a people’s cultural products isnthrough children’s literature.n

n

nDid ABC immediately open up opportunities for your respective publishing houses with the donor support, or was it a whilenbefore the benefits were evident? What hopes did you have?n

n

nLet me start by saying that Heinemann Kenya, and later EAEP, wasnalready a fairly big publishing house by African standards. So as much as we were keen on ABC, we were not geared towards publishing fornABC per se. Our textbooks for primary and secondary schools in Kenya were performing well in the market, and ABC thereforenserved as the icing on the cake, so to speak.n

n

nWe were however eager to expand the market for our scholarly and general trade publications, and ABC provided the perfect opportunity fornthis. Throughout the 1990s, EAEP’s books dominated the ABC list, and authors were particularly happy that their products were made availablento the rest of the world. They were also able to earn some additional revenues in the form of royalties accruing from ABC sales.n

n

nIn addition, the ABC sales provided the much-needed foreign exchange, especially during a time when there were foreign exchange restrictionsnin Kenya, and availability of the US dollar or UK pound was not only good for business but also quite prestigious. We were therefore ablento run a fairly active dollar account.n

n

nThe move to digitise was clearly exciting and a game-changer for the organisation. What did you think of it at the time andnsubsequently? What were the practical challenges?n

n

nThis came at a time when we had started experiencing donor-fatigue. The support was waning, and we had to devise a self-sustaining model.nSuch a model required cost-containment measures to be implemented, which included reducing the rental space.n

n

nSo when the idea of Print-on-Demand was mooted by the new manager, Mary Jay, we warmly embraced it because it meant saving on warehousingnspace.n

n

nIn addition, I was cognisant of the fact that book publishing was headed the digital way, and this was just but the beginning of thatngradual transition.n

n

nHowever, shipping physical stocks back to Kenya was rather expensive, and we had to wrack our brains on the best route to take: donate toncharity in London, pulp the books, or ship them at a cost, then price them well to recoup the shipment cost. In the end, the three modelsnwere adopted, based on the advice from my sales and marketing team.n

n

nDigitising of the books was also not easy. It involved scanning of the physical books to create soft copies, since they had been developednusing the old book production methods. Such scanning would introduce typographical errors, hence the need for thorough proofreading to weednthem out, and this came at an additional cost.n

n

nHow have you seen the African cultural landscape alter during the years of ABC’s existence? Particularly in terms of Africanncultural autonomy as an aspect of the liberation agenda?n

n

nAfrican cultural landscape has undergone significant changes since the birth of ABC, 30 years ago. First, in terms of education. There is annincreasingly rising number of educated elites, most embracing the science-oriented courses and taking up globally recognised roles. Othersnhave gone into academia and published widely, both locally and internationally.n

n

nThere is a shift in terms of research and books that are being published. A focus on themes relating to colonialism, fight for independence,nand so on, has increasingly been replaced by those touching on corruption in post-independent Africa, environmental issues, leadership,namong other contemporary themes.n

n

nPublished works have become diverse by the day, and virtually every theme is being explored. In terms of ownership of publishing firms, mostnof the multinational firms in Kenya have either been bought off by local outfits (like in the case of Heinemann which was acquired by EAEPnin 1992), or they have exited the scene after being edged out by local players (like in the case of Evans Brothers and Nelson).n

n

nIndigenous publishing firms are increasing by the day. Some are set up by former staff of mainstream publishing companies, while others bynindependent entrepreneurs who do not have training or experience in publishing. Then there are those that have grown from self-publishingninitiatives. Most of these are started by scholars, and they have contributed towards increasing the number of scholarly publications innAfrica. Such publications have found space on the ABC list.n

n

nHow healthy do you consider the African knowledge production landscape going into the future? Are there any particular trendsnyou see coming with new technology?n

n

nThe terrain is clearly set for a vibrant future, especially in Kenya. Most publishers are embracing new publishing technologies very fast,nnew players are getting onto the scene, and partnerships with international players are also becoming a reality.n

n

nThe increasing number of young techno-savvy and innovative graduates is helping in the shift towards digital publishing and online sales.nThis has seen a rise in works that are available as e-books, digital revision materials, and even animated versions of textbooks.n

n

nAfrican governments are also supporting this shift by coming up with policies at the curriculum development centres, as well as guidelinesnon how to develop interactive digital content. They have also set aside substantial funding for rollout of digital learning, includingnrolling out programmes to supply digital devices to school children.n

n

nThe world is more closely connected than it was when ABC began. Will there be more collaborations with Northern publishers andnuniversities? How do you see future relationships with the Northern knowledge industry?n

n

nYes, indeed. Collaborations are bound to increase, especially through digital publishing and online sales. It is now easy to co-publish andnhave a book simultaneously launched in a number of countries, even continents.n

n

nThe ease in acquiring rights, thanks to modern information and communication technologies, is also a boon to the concept of collaborations.n

n

nThe only downside is that most publishing firms have concentrated on school books, so we are yet to have a proliferation of bold publishersnready to invest in trade and scholarly publishing, which lend themselves well for collaborations.n

n

nIn addition, although technology has brought about endless opportunities, it has also eased in other negative aspects, like publishing andntrading in counterfeit books. This is killing creativity, and unless concerted efforts are put in place, it is likely to demoralise authors,nleading to less production of new titles.n

n

How do you see ABC’s future and what hopes do you have for African publishing?

n

nABC can only get better. First, advancements in modern technology have tremendously eased the ABC model of operations. Even before thenCovid-19 ‘new normal’, ABC had already adopted the concept of ‘working from home’, thanks to technology and a futuristic mind-set.n

n

nABC has been able to contain operational costs and hence consistently increase profitability, due to this futuristic mind-set that looks atnthe laptop as an office in itself, as opposed to having a physical office. This will continue to define its operations.n

n

nStill on technology, digital books have continued to gain currency, especially the categories that sit well on the ABC catalogue. It isneasier and faster to publish digitally, because the time-consuming and financially impacting physical printing is not there. This model willntherefore be a major contributor to ABC’s growth.n

n

nThe growth of African publishing firms, from self-publishers who endeavour to produce professionally done books, to big firms that havenvariety, means that ABC’s list keeps growing. I anticipate much more growth in this arena in terms of more titles, wider categories, andnmore revenues.n

n

nI also must mention that the founder council members have now exited the scene and ushered in new and younger blood, which is expected tonbring in new, and shall I add, bold, ideas to ABC. With this change, I expect renewal and reinvigoration of ABC.n

n

nIn terms of its engagements at book exhibitions such as the London and Frankfurt book fairs and at American university centres, Inanticipate a bigger physical and virtual ABC stand, more involvement of authors during the fairs, more trading in rights, among others.n

n

nIn a nutshell, just like I am proud to see the significant growth of ABC in the last 30 years, I am certain that the year 2050 will find ABCnswirling in space, serving continents and countries with every imaginable form of reading material from Africa.n

nnn

Tanaka Chidora

Zimbabwean poet, literary critic, and academic

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Tanaka Chidora is a Zimbabwean poet, literary critic, and academic who teaches Creative Writing and Theories ofLiterature at the Department of English at the University of Zimbabwe. His poetry collection BecauseSadness is Beautiful?is out now. Tendai Rinos Mwanaka, from Mwanaka Mediaand Publishing,interviews him on his life and writing.

Tendai Rinos Mwanaka (TRM): Who is Tanaka Chidora?

Tanaka Chidora (TC): I am an academic, literary critic, blogger, and writer. I have a single collection of poems titled BecauseSadness is Beautiful?and a short story that appears in Chitungwiza Mushamukuru:An Anthology from Zimbabwe’s Biggest Ghetto Town.I am currently working on my first novel and a collection of short stories.

TRM: Where were you born? Give us an idea about your early childhood and how it influenced your writing.

TC: I was born in Masvingo and spent half of my childhood in the village and the other half in Mbare, Harare. One of thethings that the village afforded me as a writer is its expansive landscape, which made me appreciate how the landscape cannot be divorcedfrom my understanding of myself and the world I live in. So you will see that in my prose. I try by all means to make the landscape acharacter, a person. Remember that in ‘Days of the Sun,’ a short story that was published in your anthology (Chitungwiza Mushamukuru),I paint these graphic pictures of the Chigovanyika landscape. The ability to use imagery to describe the landscape was honed in the villagewhere all these vistas were there to be captured. But the truth is, the ghetto of Mbare gave me a certain sensitivity to what it feels liketo be human and to live on the margins. So my poems and prose hugely focus on life on the margins, so that the aesthetic that drives mywriting is really a ghetto aesthetic, but this time from an insider’s perspective.

TRM: So how do you strike a balance between the village character and the ghetto character, or how do you supress the other…how do you deal with the disjunction, do you compartmentalise?

TC: In poetry, it’s easier to merge the two. I write one piece that captures the boiling turmoil of the ghetto and anothernostalgic one that captures the vanishing idyll of the village. I haven’t tried yet to merge the two in a work of prose. The novel I amworking on is set in the ghetto. The second prospective novel features the diaries of a commuter aboard the ZUPCO bus, which is still anurban setting. But since the diaries are not just about what happens before boarding the ZUPCO and aboard the ZUPCO, but feature thecommuter’s remembrances, there are chances that the narrative will feature village scenes, especially those that are triggered by the eventsin the city. It’s different with the Shona poems that I am working on though. So far, many of the poems I have written in Shona feature avillage voice — slow, measured, so that in the mind of the reader, it’s a broke pensioner recounting his past life, especially his pastvillage life, while imbibing opaque beer at the village township.

TRM: And who is this village pensioner?

TC: [He laughs.] That’s a good question. It’s an imaginary character whose voice I use in my Shona poems. The voice is anamalgamation of the many voices of the elderly pensioners who now stay in the village but who I encountered during my childhood in thevillage — the uncle who used to work for the Cold Storage Commission back in the good old days of the old currency, when a single pay chequewas enough to afford him a drinking binge that would last for weeks while still taking care of the family; the retired headmaster who stillbehaves like a headmaster at family gatherings and funerals; the Wenera returnee with exotic paraphernalia like a bicycle and an Okapiknife; the guy who used to work for the NRZ and was the first to own a television in the village; the retired gonyeti driver withunbelievable tales of escapades in foreign lands… But the voice is also mine, created specifically to imagine what I will look like 30years from now if the current hiccups persist: a retired academic reading stale newspapers on the verandah of a crumbling bottle store whilereminiscing on the good old days of academic conferences and trips to foreign lands to the astounded disbelief of young village voyeurs!

TRM: What is your writing process(es) like? How do you come to a writing or how does a writing cometo you… And how do you get to the point when you say, ‘Here is what I have created’?

TC: Writing comes to me. I really do not look for it. Like Bukowski, I believe that if it really requires that I should goshopping for it, then it’s not meant for me. It should come to me, find asylum in me and cry for me to get it out onto the laptop’s screen.It’s the waiting though that requires a bit of patience because sometimes it feels like it will never come. You really need to be perceptiveenough to be able to recognise the tell-tale signs of its presence when it eventually comes. Sometimes it comes as a word, a phrase, anevent. I still remember when we were having a WhatsApp conversation with a friend in 2018 and he mentioned, in passing, something aboutarmed peace. That phrase triggered something in me and I held on to it like it was a lifeline or something. When I finally wrote a poem withthe same title, I dedicated it to him. Sometimes it comes when you are watching a movie, or after an argument with your spouse, or afteryour boss behaves like a Pharisee of sorts. There are times when it comes when you are sad (I love that one!), angry, or when something israging inside you and you want to send the Gadarene swine somewhere. Writing becomes the exorcism you are desperate for. When I am happy, Ising. Hehehehehe!

TRM: And you are also an academic. You said writing comes to you naturally. Do you thinkart/creativity can be taught then?

TC: That’s a tough one because I actually teach creative writing at the university. But the thing is, while teaching, I cansee that this one has it in them, that one doesn’t. I think teaching merely reinforces what is already in existence in an individual. Ifit’s not there, if we have to move heaven and earth to plant it in a person, we have to admit that it’s not there. A student may pass mycourse but go on to avoid writing like it’s a plague or something. Do you know why that happens? Because that student has not been called towrite. Writing is a calling. But then, sometimes a potential writer may not be aware of what is inside. Such a writer needs a teacher tolead them by the hand and unveil to them the gem that lies hidden inside.

TRM: What do you teach them?

TC: I can’t say I teach them how to create. I don’t think that can be taught. I expose them to various artistic creationswith the hope that somewhere along the way, they discover their voices and create their own pieces. When they bring those pieces to me, and Idiscover that their pieces can be improved by reading so-and-so’s work, I advise them to do so. That way, they own their voices. I don’tlike imposing my voice on students’ work. They will end up creating the world in my own image, and that is the worst kind of dictatorship.

TRM: But as someone looking from outside, why do most of the ‘taught creative writing writers’write the same way? How does a teacher avoid being a teacher when he is teaching?

TC: I am not sure about the assertion that taught creative writers write the same way, but I believe that teaching peoplehow to write creates stuff that has an acquired taste. Very mechanical stuff. As a teacher, I am aware of the multifarious stirrings of thehuman mind and I must be open-minded enough to accept that my way is not the only way. My students are teachers in their own right!Sometimes they come up with these amazing pieces from which I learn a thing or two. One of the things that I have always tried to inculcatein my students is that during my lectures, we create together. We write together. We sometimes create these crazy pieces in which each of uscontributes a single sentence or line. We call it ‘The Thing Without a Name’ (obviously inspired by Naipaul). The idea came when my creativefriend (Millicent Yedwa) and I decided to write a poem titled ‘Tales of a Cat in its Ninth Life.’ We are still writing that poem. But whatinterested me was the fact that each of us interpreted the title differently, and so what we have are alternating verses that read like twoalternating worlds. This means we cannot see the world using the same eyes. Creative writing is simply describing the world the way we seeit. So I can’t impose my way of seeing things. I have to let go and let inspiration lead. And that’s where things become really interesting!

TRM: Okay, let’s go back to the ghetto character. How do you convert garbage into art? Ghetto lifeis grim and ungraceful… by what process do you turn it into aesthetics?

TC: I think literature by its very nature utilises dystopian conditions to create terrifying beauty. That’s what it does.Look at my anthology, published under your stable. I wrote those poems in 2018 and 2019 when the country and individual lives wereundergoing serious changes, largely in the negative (except for a few lives). My philosophy is: when confronted with such grim realities,what should a writer do? Cry?

So writing becomes a way of creating order out of the chaos of life, a way of trying to find meaning in this otherwise complicated existenceof ours.

As a Zimbabwean, this should be familiar. Writing, for a Zimbabwean writer like me, is the only home possible. And if writing is a home, ithas to be beautiful, so that even if I am capturing the grim reality of Mbare, I have to do it in a beautiful way, you know, that beautythat is so raw and honest that a reader would want to embark on a trip to Mbare to see for themselves.

So even where I am describing death (and I have done so when I wrote two poems about my grandmother’s death), I have to redeem a certainbeauty from it. I hate mourning and wailing. Take coronavirus for instance. Most of the poems I have read should not be allowed to get into ahospital ward where coronavirus patients are being treated. They will die from the mourning contained therein. Something must be redeemedfrom the drudgery of this life. Writing affords us that opportunity.

TRM: What are your interests outside literature and writing?

TC: I love music. I love listening to music; I love creating it. When my young brother was still alive, I wouldoccasionally visit his studio and we would create music for fun. I actually have a couple of songs that we made from those occasional visitsto the studio. But since his passing, I haven’t really done any music.

TRM: You were close to your young brother?

TC: Very close. He actually was not my blood brother. He was this talented young man who stayed in Mbare but looked up tome as a brother. He was on his way to something really big and international when his life was cut short at the tender age of 25. I wrote apoem for him titled ‘Nostalgia (to Leeroy Nyamande).’ It’s there in Because Sadness is Beautiful?

TRM: I suppose writing the poem was your way of dealing with his loss? Is that your main way todeal with loss?

TC: “Grief tastes like sugar if we move our tongues along the right edges.” I have forgotten the name of the poet who saidthose words but I find them to be very apt. So yeah, writing poems is also my way of dealing with loss.

TRM: If he were alive what song would you like to do with him?

TC: ‘The things we do.’ It’s the last song I had written before his passing.

TRM: What kind of music do you like?

TC: Soul; lovers’ rock, 80s and 90s RnB, hip hop.

TRM: And in Zimbabwe… what is your favourite music?

TC: I am really selective. I like the Zimdancehall Movement for its raw and petulant delivery. But I do not like all of theartists in that movement. I like Poptain, Ras Caleb, Dadza D, Guspy Warrior, Kinnah, Seh Calaz, Freeman, Jay C, Celscious, DaRuler. I likeTocky Vibes too.

Outside the Zimdancehall movement, I like Ex Q, Trevor Dongo, Alexio Kawara, Nox, Charlie Kay, Rocqui, Kikky Badass, Blackbird, JuniorBrown, Munetsi, Tehn Diamond, Noble Stylez, Ngoni Kambarami, etc.

There are particular urban grooves artists whom I wish would bounce back, like Sebede. I like Zim hip hop, especially where the flow is likethe late King Pinn’s.

TRM: I was reading the latest academic work by Zvikomborero Kapuya, Not Yet Post Colonial: Essays on Ghetto Being,Cosmology and Space in Post Colonial Zimbabwe,where he dwelt on Zimdancehall music in one of the chapters. I also read an essay from Rumbidzai Doreen Tiwenga on Zimdancehall… Ialso read about your interest in the music… Why are the young Zimbabwe academics interested in this music that sounds to olderlisteners shallow most of the time? What is attracting you to this music?

TC: I think it’s the subversive potential of the music. Zimdancehall is a youthful genre, and for some of us whose youthera is fast disappearing in the turmoil of being Zimbabwean, this is it! It’s a way of throwing all decorum to the wind and confronting ourrealities with the raw, petulant, and vulgar tools at our disposal. So for some academics like myself, and those you have mentioned, thereis this attempt to find revolutionary meaning in it even where some of the musicians might not be really aware of the philosophy drivingtheir music.

TRM: What did you find is the philosophy that drives this music?

TC: It’s a philosophy that is developed from living on the margins for too long. The youth are touted as the future, yetfor long they see that future being jeopardized by the politics of the elders. So what the Zimdancehall aesthetic does is to throw away thebaby and the bathwater. In other words, they reject being programmed youths. And they do this by creating art at the margins and thencoaxing themselves to the centre of the national imaginary using the tools that are at their disposal, in this case, music. Some of them maynot be able to articulate this philosophy the way I am doing here, but many revolutionary acts were carried out by people who were not evenaware of what they were doing.

TRM: What then is your job as an academic or critic?

TC: My job is to explain such musical phenomena and assign meaning to them.

TRM: What poem or poet do you hate?

TC: I don’t hate. But I do not like to see evidence of a poet trying too hard to impress the reader!

TRM: Are you scared of throwing a rotten egg on someone?

TC: Not really. But I am really incapable of hating a writer. I may not like their work, but hate them? No.

TRM: What poem or poet do you love?

TC: I love Bukowski and his philosophy of writing. If you look at his philosophy very closely, you will see that Bukowskibelieves that writing should not be hard labour. It should come naturally, by itself. If it’s not there, don’t force it. That is why I donot like pretentious pieces. A poet should not make poetry go where the poet has not been before.

TRM: What makes a great poem?

TC: The poet’s honesty. You should read a poem and commune with the poet’s soul, not something created outside the poet’sinner universe.

TRM: Tell us about the writing scene in your country.

TC: People are writing. We have all sorts of writers. What we do not have is a publishing industry. That one is dead.Really, really dead. So for many local authors, after writing a book, one has to think of how to push volumes. So you see most of themlugging suitcases full of copies of their most recent books. I don’t think a real industry should make writers do that. There should bepeople who concentrate on the publishing and marketing side while the writer concentrates on creating the product. But in Zimbabwe, suchstructures are dead.

TRM: What do you think destroyed those structures? And what can be done to rebuild them?

TC: Most things hinge on the economy, I guess.

TRM: If you were a poem what form will you be in?

TC: Free verse!

TRM: Thank you for the chat. Are there any parting words?

TC: Parting words? There ain’t no parting. Let’s just say, so long, and thanks for the chat.

TRM: Hahaha, okay man.

Akoss Ofori-Mensah

Sub-Saharan Publishers, Ghana

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Akoss Ofori-Mensah is a Ghanian publisher and the founder of Sub Saharan Publishers, Accra. Akoss has served on theGhana Book Publishers Association as the Honorary Secretary and Vice President. She was elected President of the Association from2003-2005. She has been a member of the African Publishers Network (APNET), the IBBY Executive Committee, and sits on African BooksCollective’s Council of Management.

African book production has often been criticized as poor quality, what are some of the developments in the area now?

The days of African published books being of poor quality are over. Henry Chakava of East African Educational Publishers once wrote that”Books published in Africa do not travel beyond their national borders. A cursory look at most of these will reveal glaring spelling errorsand bad grammar even in the preliminary pages and blurb.”(1997). At the Bologna Book Fair in 2004, Tainie Mundondo of the African PublishersNetwork (APNET) put up a beautiful display of African children’s books. We went out for lunch and on our return we found that the stand hadbeen stripped bare! Everything was gone, including the APNET banner! We almost fainted! Formerly, nobody would have touched the stand;African children’s books in the 1980s were not worth stealing.

The first Sub-Saharan books were printed in the UK and Belgium; but when I met Book Printing Press from Mauritius in Harare, I changed tothem. Their prices were far lower than what I used to get from the UK. A few years later the company broke up, so I found new printers inEastern Europe. The Far East and Eastern Europe have excelled as the places for cheap and high quality printing. Many African publishersprint in India, Turkey, Dubai, China, Malaysia etc. The only problem with the Far East is that the shipment takes too long to arrive inAfrica. In fact even the big time publishers of Europe and America print in the Far East.

Books are difficult commodities to sell and if the production quality is not up to international standards they become impossible to sell:even if the content is top-class material. People do not look at this if it is shoddily produced.

The Ghanaian government has put some measures in place to protect local industry hasn’t it?

Several factors make it cheaper to print outside Ghana than internally. First of all Ghana does not produce paper and other printing inputs,such as ink, films and plates. Secondly, there are import duties on paper and print materials, whereas the printed book comes into thecountry without any duty because Ghana is a signatory to the BernConvention/Florence Agreement.

When the Ministry of Education in Ghana divested itself of textbook publishing and invited local publishers to develop the books in 2004,one of the conditions stipulated in the contracts was that 20% of the work must be printed in Ghana. Only the Teachers’ Guides were printedlocally: the successful publishers printed their books outside. In 2007, all textbooks were still printed outside. The printers in Ghanawere extremely bitter. To boost the local printing industry in Ghana, the government passed a law in 2015 making the printing of Ghanaianschool textbooks outside Ghana a criminal offence. To make it easier and cheaper for the printers, the government has removed the VAT onpaper and printing materials meant for textbooks.

There have been a myriad of donor and government supported literary and educational initatives in West Africa. Who do you thinkhave been the key players in the area?

The measures put in place by local governments, such as that of Ghana’s Education Service, in collaboration with outside agencies over thelast ten years provide an example of how inside and outside players can interact to bring about beneficial change.

Education in Africa has been supported by donors for quite some time and in the 1980s The World Bank insisted that governments/Ministries ofEducation should divest themselves of book publishing and allow private publishers to take over. Immediately all foreign publishersnationalized as local publishers. Other new players came on the scene and book publishing started to develop.

There has been a concern to improve literacy among children in Ghana over the last two decades. Between 2000-2017 there has been some majorprojects in Ghana supported by USAID and UNICEF to promote early literacy among children .. The first, called EQUALL (Education Quality forAll) and the second, NALAP (National Literacy Acceleration Programme). These projects were based on the belief that if a child learns toread and write in his/her mother tongue he/she can learn other languages much more easily. Ghanaian published books were translated intolocal languages for use in the projects for the primary schools. The officers in charge talked to the publishers whose books were selectedand negotiated a flat fee for all. The project paid about US$100) per title. The publishers involved did not make a fuss because it was anational project (a kind of corporate social responsibility). These local language readers were distributed to the primary schools.

Earlier, in 2006-2010, a similar project was undertaken to produce early learning Teaching & Learning Materials (TLMS),again supportedby the USAID-Barbara Bush Project. The materials were developed by the Ghana Education Service and staff from Chicago University. Thematerials developed were based on the Ghana Education Service curriculum.

In late 2015, USAID, through an organization called Fhi360 and the Ghana Education Service again purchased early reading materials in bothlocal languages and English for distribution to kindergartens and lower primary schools in the country. Over 3,500,000 books in English werepurchased for kindergarten and lower primary schools together with over 750,000 books in local languages.

Currently, UNICEF has ordered more copies of the same books to supplement what USAID bought. All these books were written and published inGhana by Ghanaians. Publishers had to distribute the books to their assigned schools and produce evidence of delivery before they were paid.

Some NGOs also produce such readers to support their programmes: for example Biblionef has produced the CAT AND DOG series and KathyKnowles, of the Osu Library Fund, often produces readers for her libraries.

It is well-known that the many years of civil wars destroyed practically everything in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Once peace was restored,the country had to start again from scratch. When the Canadian Organization for Development throughEducation (CODE)started their reading programme in the region they were buying readers from Sub-Saharan Publishers (SSP). Then they had locals to write andillustrate stories. SSP organized the design and layout for them. Once the print files were ready we sent them to a printer of CODE’s choicein the Far East to print the books. We advised CODE to get them an Apple computer and the Indesign software: our designer then used to go toMonrovia for short, 10-day breaks to teach young people there book design.

Africa writers, illustrators and publishers are busily working to produce books which meet their respective national syllabus requirements.Textbooks need to be culturally relevant for the students. The Ghana Education Textbook Policy, for example, stipulates that at least 70% ofthe content of a textbook must be written by Ghanaians. Thus textbook curricula are mostly country specific.

You are well-known for your rights selling and buying, your children’s list these days is not even restricted to storieswritten in Ghana. What have been some of your recent successes?

I have personally published a reader written by an Ethiopian, and illustrated by a Ghanaian. The book was launched by the Ethiopian embassyin Accra. I just sold the rights for that book to Rwanda and it has been published in Kinyanrwanda. I have also bought the rights for booksfrom South Africa and published them in Ghana. In fact I dare say that I have sold more copies of Niki Daly’s Jamela’s Dress inGhana than Tafelberg has done in South Africa.

Gizi Gizo is an example of a reader written by an Americanintern working with the Zongo Community in Cape Coast. The story is based on the desire to use water as a means to improve the quality oflife for the Zongo people. Zongo settlements are areas in West African towns and cities, inhabited predominantly by settlers from thenorthern sahel region formerly dominated by Hausas from Northern Nigeria. The language in these zongos is predominantly Hausa.

The Stories Spread across the World is another example from afar which has come back to Ghana. It is a typical Ghanaian folk taletaken to the Americas during the transatlantic slave trade. I first saw the book in Guadalajara, flipped through and guessed the tale. Ihave had it translated into English and published it. The story was originally written in Portuguese and illustrated by a Brazilian.

Sosu’s Call has been published in Castillian and Catalan inSpain, in English in North America, South Africa and the UK, in Portuguese in Brazil, in German, Danish , Italian, in French, Czech,Kiswahili, in Mandarin Chinese in Taiwan and Simplified Chinese in Mainland China. In fact I sold six of the Meshack Asare titles toRainbird Educational Publishers ten years ago at the first Cape Town Book Fair in 2006.

Irrespective of where a book is written or the language, once people know it and get interested in it, it will travel.

Donors are pushing for change in Africa, particularly around the provision of Teaching and Learning Materials (TLMs). What aresome of your thoughts about some of the initatives proposed from where you sit as an African publisher publishing in Ghana?

Often there is a belief that those who fail to embrace the digital TLMS now will become obsolete or fall behind. Some content might interestlearners and teachers; other content may not. Although digital books and TLMS may eventually replace printed books, it is likely to be agradual process. In fact, from the experience of African Books Collective, the rush for ebooks has plateaued and the demand for the printedbook has grown.

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) cannot behave like the proverbial ostrich so far as digital TLMs are concerned; the development in new technologiesvis a vis teaching and learning materials in SSA cannot be overlooked. However, the choices are neither simple nor cost efficient, and thereis perhaps no viable substitute for the traditional book, at least for the moment. Over the next decade or two, the most cost-effectiveapproach may be a combination of printed materials and digital TLMS, especially for the teaching of science.

For NGO’s operating on donor funding this is quite feasible, but for commercial publishers it might be difficult. A meeting with commercialpublishers to discuss the issue and find mutually acceptable ways is necessary.

The expense involved in the digital migration vis a vis the traditional book must also be considered. The cost of computers, tablets,phones, etc. In addition to the cost of set-up, should be compared with the cost of funding print runs and distribution to decide which ismore cost effective.

It may be that the cost of computers, tablets, phones, etc., plus the cost of set-up, is the more expensive option. Besides, the issue ofelectric power is a real problem in Africa. Nigeria is the biggest producer of oil in Africa, but it might interest you to know that peopleare always queueing for petrol while practically everybody in Nigeria owns a generator. In some parts of Lagos it is difficult to sleep atnight due to the cacophony of noise from generators. At the same time the cost of replacement of spoilt computers might be more costly thatthat of printed books.

There are large numbers of children in rural communities. In Ghana electricity is expensive, and the supply is so irregular that evenindustry cannot support it, while the domestic users cannot afford to pay for it. If a family cannot buy electricity for the home how is achild going to read on his /her computer, or tablet, or charge her phone.? How does he/she get the money for the internet café?

Then the cost of replacement of spoilt computers/tablets, phones, etc., must be taken into account as against reprints. Elementary schoolteachers will also have to be ICT literate to be able to teach digital TLMs. That is another huge investment required in teacher training.

I believe that the book as we know it will stay with us for many generations to come. You can go to bed with your book: when you fall asleepit falls down on the bed or on the floor. When you wake up it is still there, intact. You cannot do that with your computer.

Ernest Oppong

African Publishers Network

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The African Publishers Network (APNET) was established in 1992, bringing together national publishers associations and publishingcommunities in the African continent to strengthen indigenous or independent publishing. After some years of dormancy APNET hasrecently started a rejuvenation process withErnest Oppong acting as Executive Director. Stephanie Kitchen talked with Ernest about APNET’s future plans.

May 2018

Stephanie Kitchen (SK): The African Publishers Network (APNET) was established in 1992, bringing together national publishersassociations and publishing communities in the African continent to strengthen indigenous or independent publishing. Ernest, what are yourimmediate and longer terms objectives for the organisation?  

Ernest Oppong (EO): APNET’s immediate objectives are to encourage and formulate national and regional book policies. On November 22–23, 2017APNET and presidents of the various African publishers associations had a regional conference in Yaounde, Cameroon organised by the WorldIntellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). One of the key issues was creating a national book policy and determining action plans toformulate those policies and to implement a legal framework within which local governments and the publishing industry can work together.APNET is actively working with international organisations such as WIPO, the International Publishers Association (IPA) and theInternational Federation of Reproduction Rights Organisations (IFRRO) to achieve this objective. As it stands now, a few African countries,including Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Malawi, have the national book policy. However, local governments do not completely comply with thepolicy document because of the absence of legal backing. 

APNET will support subscription to international conventions and standards where these serve national interests. It will establish aninformation network among African publishers.

This objective is being enhanced by revising and developing its publications and connecting African publishers to international publishers. 

The Network is promoting book trade among and beyond Africa. APNET is committed to promoting African books and trade in international bookplatforms. Our objective is to get African publishers selling and buying more book rights; translating into other languages etc. 

Finally, it is engaging international donors for support.

Long term objectives include establishing mutual collaboration among African publishers and their respective governments; strengthening andconsolidating training resources in Africa; partnering with some African universities and running publishing training programmes.

We would like to create reprographic rights organisations in African countries that do not have these and initiate and develop policystudies on the expansion and economic development of the publishing industries in Africa, and to formulate strategies that can be employedby governments, donors, banks and lenders, overseas partners and African publishers and their associations.

SK: Over the past 25 years or so, there have been both changes and continuities across different areas of publishing throughoutthe world. In the African context, some of the ‘continuities’ might include things like issues with national policies for text bookprocurement; the need to promote ‘local’ industries in the face of ‘competition’ from multinationals with colonial roots in thecontinent; the economies – sometimes the survival – of African independent publishers, particular book publishers, known generally foroperating with low margins, and now in a digital world; shifting donor priorities. How do you see all this? What are the most urgentpolicy issues, in your view, bearing in mind the diversity of the continent?

EO: African publishers have a number of challenges with their respective governments due to the following reasons: African government seeindigenous publishers as a threat; there is non-adherence of national book policies and procedures by government; the attempt of governmentsto take over textbook publishing in most countries including Tanzania and Rwanda. Unfortunately, governments that should allow publishers tosecure textbook procurement contracts turn and act as publishers in some countries. 

The solution to these unfortunate occurrences is to establish legal backing for national book policies so that no individual in anygovernment office can unduly manipulate the policy against publishers.

Currently, the urgent policy issues are: setting national book policies; formulating legal frameworks for the policies; setting policysupporting the creation of reprographic rights organisations; international copyright law.

SK: How do Northern book donation programmes impact on local publishing industries, in your opinion? 

EO: Northern book donation programmes are helpful to promote literacy in Africa especially donating local content being it textbooks orsupplementary books that children or students can better relate to and understand. Such programmes do not have any adverse effects on thelocal publishing industries in Africa. The fact is, governments, whose mandate is to procure textbooks and supplementary readers frompublishers and distribute to all public schools and libraries, mostly do not buy enough copies to meet the needs of the increased number ofpupils and students across all levels. Most of the time, government books do not get to many rural areas which cannot afford them. InAfrica, children or learners in urban areas are more literate than those in rural areas not because the former are special people. Thedifference is the inequitable distribution of resources to the disadvantaged of rural areas. 

Parents in rural areas are not rich because they rely solely on farm produce which is seasonal. Publishers are business people; they are into make profit and to sustain the knowledge sector. African publishers have the majority of their books sold in urban areas. Sometimes, somegenerous publishers donate to some rural areas. APNET therefore proposes that Northern book donation programmes should focus on rural areas.

SK: APNET is currently located in Ghana which, in my perspective, boasts a relative vibrant research and university communityand an established, if small, publishing industry. How does APNET plan to support and promote such work in Ghana both regionally andinternationally?

EO: The focus of APNET is on Africa. However, we support the work of Ghana by taking some of the books of Ghanaian publishers tointernational book fairs and copyright programmes; exploring providing translation grant opportunities for them; and connecting writers tointernational publishers who are interested in African books. Over the years, some Ghanaian publishers have benefitted from trainingprogrammes organised by APNET. There will be other ways of supporting and promoting work in Ghana regionally and internationally by APNETjust like in other member countries.

SK: APNET founders and board members include representatives from Francophone and North Africa, besides the major ‘Anglophone’countries. Are there plans to assist and promote publishers from the Francophone sphere, which encounter specific problems connected to thedominance of the former colonial power in their industries? 

EO: APNET is very much aware of the challenges encountered by the Francophone publishers to achieve the desired independence from thedominance of the former colonial power in their industries. The Network is helping to formulate the policies outlined above and will help inadvocacy programmes in countries that require them. There are limitations to cross-border movement and trade of books in Francophonecountries unlike in Anglophone countries.

SK: Could you give us a sense of how APNET is currently resourced? From membership dues, aid donors and so forth? Are thecurrent requirements of the organisation being met? Are there plans to expand available resources?

EO: Currently, APNET is resourced by membership dues. Plans are being made to secure aid from donors to expand available resources in orderto fully execute its programmes and initiatives. 

SK: Staying on this point, it’s probably fair to say that European aid donors (DfID, SIDA, UNESCO etc.) have had a mixed recordin their involvement with African publishing since the early 1990s. Good initiatives – such as APNET and the African Books Collective(ABC) as well as specific publishing projects – have been supported in the past. Funding streams can be affected by donor priorities,however, and there have been issues with short-termism and other problems. What seems incontrovertible is that donors should listen toand be informed by practitioners – publishers and their representative bodies – from the continent. Do you agree? How will APNETarticulate the views of its members? 

EO: I certainly agree. European aid donors have supported good initiatives from APNET and ABC in the past as stated. Our members have cometogether with massive interest in the projects of APNET. There is effective sharing of project information with members. I think what APNETintends doing is to approach donors with publishing projects to influence their priorities. 

SK: A linked question is how the African publishing industry will respond to current donor interests in, or requirements for,things like digital editions and open licensing (particularly for children’s books) or Open Access (particularly for journals, promoted,e.g. by UNESCO). These issues are in no sense unique to the African continent, and elsewhere government policies may often clash withacademic or publishing interests. What may be more difficult in Africa however is the historic weakness of the sector versus thedominance of the more powerful Northern donors in policy areas. How should the sector best navigate this?

EO: There should be a well-structured framework to control the actions of publishers, donors and government. I think that when governmentstops procuring children’s books from publishers, should open licensing take effect, or publishes books in open license freely, this wouldcollapse the publishing industry in Africa. As much as we all want especially those who can’t afford books to get free access to books andread, we should not create any economic chasm for publishers. APNET is in the process of putting in sustainable measures to make sure thatthere is mutual benefit. However, it should be noted that APNET is not against open access or open licensing of books but our concern isthat there should be some control measures in order not to kill the publishing industry in Africa. 

SK: There must be value in publishers working together through organisations such as APNET, but disillusionment with donorpolicies may discourage publishers themselves from engaging. How will the association engage its members?

EO: Yes, it is true that the focus of many publishers is to get money. However, the mandate of APNET includes representing members regardingpolicies and publishing projects. Fortunately, international organisations see APNET as the most recognised body to deal with onpublishing/book related issues that transcend to African publishers. The Network has advisory influence on its members and APNET will informits members of anything that will not be beneficial to them. 

SK: What will APNET do to support (in practice) publishing in African languages by African publishers, a long-standing demand,famously articulated by Ngugi wa Thiong’o and more recently by HoraceCampbell at a lecture in Accra. 

EO: To date, the initiative of some individual African publishers publishing educational materials in African languages has been impressive.However, the number of such titles is comparably low especially for fiction. I think first of all, reading interest in fiction by famouswriters – such as Chinua Achebe, Nigeria; Prof. Ama Atta Aidoo, Lawrence Darmani, Meshack Asare, Amma Darko, from Ghana; Ngugi wa Thiong’o,from Kenya – in African languages should be promoted. It is also a fact that Africans have high interest in fiction in English (Anglophone),French (Francophone) and Arabic (Northern/Arab countries). 

Then the next thing is to institute an award scheme to motivate publishers who will publish such famous stories from English, French orArabic into African languages.

SK: Whilst the main focus of APNET is within the African continent, how will the organisation engage internationally, andwhere? I’m thinking here about e.g. supporting its member publishers to trade in important international markets, such as with the US,Europe, China and the Middle East.

EO: APNET used to support some of its members from different member-countries to participate in international book fairs. Now, the Networkis not able to support this because of lack of funds. APNET Secretariat therefore participates in international book fairs with some booksfrom the members and connects foreign publishers who show interest in any African book to its publisher. The Board is also making effortsmeeting with organisations on how best to explore business opportunities for members. Within one year, APNET has participated in theTurkish, Tunis and Abu Dhabi international book fairs. Moreover, the Network will resume its support for member publishers to participate ininternational book markets when it attracts some appreciable funds. 

SK: Finally, how will APNET encourage ‘intra-Africa’ trade: the movement of books across the continent whether in print ordigital form?

EO: I think there should be some training on intra-African trade; building of mutual trust among African publishers and eradication ofregional/national cross-border barriers for books. 

SK: Many thanks for your time, Ernest. I can appreciate from the foregoing you are very busy and invested in many projects! Iwish you and APNET every success in the future.

For further details see www.african-publishers.net

Email: info.africanpublishers(at)gmail.com

Francois van Schalkwyk

African Minds, South Africa

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Stephanie Kitchen talks with Francois van Schalkwyk, of African Minds, South Africa, and a co-author of the report
‘The African University Press’.

September 2017

Stephanie Kitchen (SK): Congratulations on publication of this new research study on the profile of African university presses. How do you see the immediate future for university presses working in the continent?

Francois van Schalkwyk (FvS): Some claim that scholarly book publishing is in trouble. At the same time, new university presses are being established: five recently in the UK, and our research revealed that two flagship universities in Africa – Makerere and Ghana – are in the process of resuscitating their mothballed university presses. Two macro developments can be observed internationally. There are perceptions in academia of ‘robber capitalism’ on the part of the large commercial publishers and there is the emergence (or perhaps return to) a knowledge commons: a new form of social capitalism made possible by the Internet and communication technologies. And on the continent, African researchers and their universities are increasing their research output. Amid these trends, there at least 52 African university presses, in various states of repair, trying to forge ahead. I believe these presses have an important contribution to make to the African knowledge base, if they are conceived appropriately given current challenges and opportunities.

SK: Two of the four case studies you include are from Ethiopia: Addis Ababa and Wollega university presses. Both are insightful and the descriptions are rich. Are there experiences that can be drawn from university press publishing in Ethiopia that might be replicated (or avoided) elsewhere in the continent?

FvS: Common to both is that their host universities are in a public higher education system receiving considerable support from the Ethiopian government relative to other African higher education systems. But we chose them for their differences. Addis Ababa University Press is housed by one of the oldest universities in Africa where norms and practices have been firmly entrenched. Wollega University is one of group of new universities established by the Ethiopian government; and while it is not immune to institutional pressures, it is still finding its niche. Also, it was one of the very few university presses in Africa with any kind of open access publishing policy in place. What we found at Addis Ababa University Press, and was a surprise to us, is an almost exclusive focus on publishing affordable scholarly books in print for the local market. In contrast, Wollega University Press has a more global outlook, and open access publishing extends the reach of their publications. Perhaps what is replicable is diversity by design? At the system level, there could be a more diverse mix of university press types with the less institutionally bound presses being more experimental while the more established presses serve the local market. Naturally, other scholarly publishers not located at universities would be part of this mix.

SK: In an eye-opening section on the publishing practices of academics at Makerere University in Uganda, you show how whilst the academic community may be producing sufficient manuscripts to support a university press, an alarming number of book manuscripts (16/25 or 64% of monographs) are currently being published by vanity or predatory presses (in Germany), whilst a very small minority of books are being published within the continent. No monographs in your sample were published in Uganda. To what extent do you sense this scenario is being replicated in other African countries? 

FvS: I suspect that one would find similar patterns elsewhere, particularly at universities such as Ghana, Nairobi and others where there has been a marked increase in the number of research publications. Certainly, in South Africa research has shown that predatory publishing is a serious concern. 

SK: What steps can be taken to give academics in Africa, such as the group you profile in Uganda, a better chance of legitimate publication? What can be done to achieve a higher rate of publication by publishers based in Africa?

FvS: It is not always clear whether academics are gaming the system or whether they are simply naïve when choosing to publish with predatory publishers. Our research didn’t explore this question and I’m not aware of any other research that has. If it is naïveté on the part of academics, then the number of legitimate publications could be increased by better educating academics on what their publishing options are, and what the risks are should they elect to submit their manuscripts to predatory publishers. I think university presses have a role to play in this regard. I get the sense that they aren’t engaging actively enough with academics at their own universities. 

SK: You appear to remain optimistic about open access publishing for books in Africa, despite finding only one university press to be publishing open access books. You are yourself an open access books publisher with some experience at African Minds and you give examples of other successful open access books programmes in South Africa, notably at the Human Sciences Research Council. Can you summarise the main barriers to achieving a higher rate of open access books publishing elsewhere in the continent and the steps needed to address these?

FvS: The expectation of universities for their presses to be profitable in nascent markets, and not giving consideration to the reputational benefits that a non-market-oriented publishing model could yield, is certainly one such barrier. From our case studies, I would say that both Wits University Press and Nairobi University Press succumb to these expectations. Although Wits University Press has published a few open access books since our research was concluded. It would be instructive to determine how their experimentation with open access came about. At Addis Ababa University Press we came across another barrier – that of its authors’ expectation of receiving royalty payments from the sale of their books. The press couldn’t reconcile open access and the perceived loss of sales income with the royalty expectations of their authors. African Minds is currently exploring a co-publication arrangement with Wits University Press under which African Minds will publish the open access edition and Wits will publish the print edition. Other than the novelty of the co-publication arrangement, it will be interesting to see whether there is any difference between expected and actual sales of the print edition. Beyond these specific barriers, and I am sure there are others, I think there is a general lack of understanding and confidence to experiment when it comes to open access publishing. 

SK: Conversely, you appear more negative about institutional repositories, which presumably can deliver a higher rate of open access for the African continent, including in universities that do not currently have a university press and are unlikely to have one in future (a situation that pertains in institutions beyond Africa). You outline the ‘distortions and unintended consequences’ of repositories comparing them at one point to book donation programmes, which have been shown to distort markets for African publishers. In general terms, where do you think African universities and their funders should be investing: in open access repositories, their own university presses, in establishing third-party publishing arrangements, etc.?

FvS: I am not negative about repositories per se. My concern is that repositories are being seen as a silver bullet when in reality they are part of a broader publishing ecosystem; an ecosystem that consists of institutional repositories, libraries, academic authors, indexing agencies, publishers (both university presses and others), and service providers. I think there are many repositories gathering dust because they were seen as a panacea to making a university’s research output more visible and accessible. 

SK: In your Conclusion, you write: 

Generally speaking, funding is not the main problem facing African university presses. There are other problems, such as outdated employment models, procurement systems, a weak research culture, and inappropriate institutional frameworks that are too bureaucratic … but primarily, it is a matter of being locked into a predominant logic unsuitable to the local context that disables innovation and creates what is seen to be a “funding crisis”.

Firstly, do you accept there may be some resources issues facing at least some of the 52 African university presses in your survey, for example among the majority that have not published in the past 3 years?

FvS: Yes, resources are an issue. But probably not a uniquely African issue. How many university presses outside of Africa wouldn’t want to be better endowed? Perhaps they are not under-resourced to the same degree as university presses in Africa, but I suspect they also face much higher labour and overhead costs. And unlike university presses in Africa, they are unlikely to be able to access financial support from donor organisations – support that could give a university press in Africa the freedom to explore and experiment with new approaches without the expectation of having to generate sales income. The point here is that resources are not the only issue. There is a lack of imagination, of innovative thinking about how to use what limited resources are available. Of course, there are exceptions – Langaa, for example, in its innovative use of volunteers (see interview with Langaa publisher, Francis Nyamnjoh), and Pretoria University Law Pressthat persevered with its open access strategy despite fierce resistance from university management. 

SK: Secondly, as regards university presses in Africa you describe a vicious cycle being in play, or a ‘logic unsuitable to the local context’. How can this be broken? I am thinking for example of strategies such as lesser – or greater – commercialization of university presses. And of alternative publishing models. Can you say briefly what these might look like?

FvS: I think this question has been answered at various points in the answers above. The only thing I would add is that I think university presses and other scholarly book publishers in Africa would benefit from being more connected. Exchanging ideas, sharing challenges, mutually formulating solutions to common problems – these could all contribute to a more confident and dynamic scholarly publishing community across Africa. To this end, we convened in August a small group of scholarly book publishers, loosely referred to as the ‘African Monograph Publishers Network’. The idea is not to set up formal network, and time will tell whether the network will remain active and add value to those publishers who engage in it. What was apparent from the meeting was the value of spending a day together to develop a better understanding of what each publisher does and to share ideas on how to shape the future of scholarly publishing in Africa given the findings of our research. I would also hope that an active network could participate in and contribute to similar initiatives in the Global North such as the Academic Book of the Future project in the UK, and its University Press Redux conference initiative.

SK: As you point out in the report, there remains a dearth of empirical knowledge on academic publishing in Africa. Your report (and the accompanying online datasets) is therefore filling a major gap. What do you identify as being the next priorities for research on academic publishing in the African continent? 

FvS: I would like to see research that focuses on the ‘supply side’ – in other words, on the motivations, incentives and choices of academics in Africa vis-à-vis publishing. Also, research on the broader publishing ecosystem, including non-university press scholarly book publishers and the role of libraries in monograph publishing. Both areas of research would be helpful to develop a more comprehensive overview of the scholarly book publishing landscape in Africa.

Brian Wafawarowa

International Publishers Association

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Brian Wafawarowa has a long history in publishing in South Africa. He was managing director at New Africa Books and has served asChairperson of the Publishers Association of South Africa (PASA), the African Publishers Network (APNET) and is currently on the boardof the International Publishers Association (IPA). He is active in publishing and has a new press, Lefa Publishing and ResearchServices. Brian talks here to Stephanie Kitchen of the International Africa Institute.

March 2019

1. Stephanie Kitchen: Brian Wafawarowa (BW), I know you are working with the International Publishers Association, (IPA), thePublishers Association of South Africa (PASA) and other publishers’ associations from the African continent. You were also a publisheryourself at one time. And you are also a researcher, author and consultant on publishing in the African continent. Could you summarise forreaders of readafricanbooks.com your interesting and varied career to date in African publishing? 

BW: I remain in publishing. As an independent publisher with my own new outfit, Lefa Publishing and Research Services (lefaPRS), I am freeto participate in some of the activities that you have mentioned. It broadens my horizon beyond being employed as a publisher. I started mycareer at Wits University Press in 1994 where I was an intern helping the editors and the publisher with various aspects of their work. Ilater joined Juta as a trainee assistant publisher in 1996 and stayed there till 2000. By then I had become publishing director withresponsibility for Juta education (schools and academic) and the University of Cape Town Press, which is an imprint of Juta. I left in 2000to start New Africa Education (NAE) with New Africa Investment Limited (NAIL). Later I spearheaded the merger of NAE, David Philip andSpearhead to create New Africa Books (NAB) as its managing director. I left NAB in 2009 to become executive director of the PASA. In 2013 Ijoined Pearson South Africa (homes of Heinemann and Longman) as the executive director of Learning Services. I left Pearson in 2017 andstarted lefaPRS, which includes publishing and research services. My career has been much broader, to include significant involvement insector policy and strategy in South Africa, the African continent and the globe. To this end I served as Chairperson of the PublishersAssociation of South Africa (PASA), the African Publishers Network (APNET) and also still serve on the board of the International PublishersAssociation (IPA). I spent a lot of time on literacy and reading programmes like the Exclusive Books Reading Trust and the Nick PerrenPublishing Foundation, where I am a trustee. These foundations build libraries in rural areas and provide scholarships for postgraduatestudies in publishing.

2. SK: how do you see the economic base of the publishing industry – in South Africa, and as far as possible in the continentmore generally? 

BW: The economic base of the industry is quite precarious and erratic at the moment. This is mainly due to over-dependence on schooltextbooks. Education publishing accounts for more than 90% of all publishing in some parts of the continent, while in more mature anddiverse markets like South Africa, it is still quite high, around 70%. Even companies that are in trade and general publishing rely onselling some of their products in the education market. The textbook market is very susceptible to changes in government policy, includingprocurement and copyright, as is being experienced in South Africa, Kenya, Rwanda and other countries at the moment.

3. SK: You have carried out research on the contribution of the publishing sector in Africa to GDP. Can you tell us more aboutthis? What is the approximate contribution – of publishing to creative economies, GDP etc. Do you see this growing in the future? 

BW: We do not have reliable information on the continent. There are efforts with WIPO and the IPA to get more reliable figures on thecontinent. Even in South Africa, where the industry is relatively more developed, at approximately R4 billion, contribution to GDP, which isestimated at approximately R4.5 trillion, is insignificant in monetary terms. The publishing sector is part of a small creative industrieseconomy, which is less than 3% of the total economy. At approximately R4 billion, the contribution of the publishing sector is less than 5%of the creative economy. I suspect that the situation is quite similar in other African countries and much direr in some. However, I thinkbeyond contribution to GDP, the industry’s contribution needs to be viewed in terms of its role in critical sectors like education, wheregood textbooks are as important as teachers and lecturers in driving education outcomes. We also need to look at the sector in terms of itsuntapped potential. With a huge and growing youth population and a huge need for education, the book sector has much greater potential forgrowth than has been realised. There are fears in South Africa and in a number of other African countries that new copyright policies, ‘onetextbook’ policies in education procurement, and state publishing will set the industry back and reduce output and employment in the sectorsignificantly. This at a time when there is a strong call for decolonisation of the curriculum and education could be ironic and tragic. 

4. SK: What factors are involved in improving and expanding this economic base? I’m thinking here of copyright regimes,national, regional and international markets, distribution, book fairs and so on. Are there examples of where this is being donesuccessfully? 

BW: Many African countries today have book and reading promotion activities that are aimed at expanding readership and publishing output.These promotions include high level initiatives like the Yaoundé conference organised by WIPO atthe end of 2017 on the economic contribution of the publishing sector to Africa. This was attended by government and industry people frommany African countries. The WIPO initiative has resulted in a number of ongoing programmes that are aimed at improving the African booksector. These include the Publishers Circles and the mentorship programmes. There is also the GlobalBook Alliance (GBA)made up of many book donor communities. It aims to increase the production of more appropriate children’s books by African countries. The IPA helda conference on African publishing in Lagos in 2018. The IPA will be holding its second conference on African publishing in Nairobi thisyear. Out of the Lagos conference came a number of programmes that are being pursued now. These include an industry statistics project, aprogramme to strengthen copyright and a national book policy development project. There are very strong African book fairs today, includingin Ghana, Nairobi, Cairo, Zimbabwe and South Africa. These are backed by strong campaigns and literary festivals like the National Book Weekin South Africa. We also are seeing a strong revival of the African Publishers Network (APNET).It is co-ordinating the activities of many African countries in global programmes and book events. So, there is really a lot going on. Whatis encouraging about these initiatives is that they are backed by real projects that seek to uplift the publishing and book sector. However,as indicated earlier, the policy environment is challenging and paints a rather bleak picture for the future. 

5. SK: what do you see as the key agencies in promoting and developing publishing on the continent – both regional andinternational bodies? How do you see their roles? How can these bodies help promote the sustainability of the African publishingindustry and professional capacity of African publishers? Are there examples or case studies from other parts of the world Africanpublishing can draw on? 

BW: It is regrettable that after years of notable advocacy and capacity building, the African Publishers Network (APNET) and the Pan AfricanBooksellers Association (PABA) went through a major lull and could not carry out their important work. The African book sector will only beviable when it reduces its dependence on textbooks and state procurement, to include general books that are aimed at a reading public. Forthat to be realised we need larger book economies that go beyond national borders along common social interests, fiction, general folkloreand common languages. However, there are many issues that have to be overcome at a continental and regional level. APNET and PABA can play acritical role in resolving some of those regional and sub-regional issues. It is interesting that at multilateral agencies like WIPO,African countries often present one voice in their negotiations with their European, American, Latin American and other regionalcounterparts. These positions are hardly informed by the needs of these sectors back home. APNET and PABA could play a key role in lobbyingAfrican groups before positions are formulated for multilateral engagements. Such views would then be more informed by the situation on theground and the needs of the sector. A clear example of how this has worked well is the role that the Federation of European Publishers (FEP)has played in influencing policy development to the European Union. 

6. SK: it is well known that African publishers are over-dependent on educational publishing (representing some 90% of allpublishing in the continent), which makes them vulnerable to educational and curriculum policy changes, and unable to develop other kinds ofgeneral, academic and literary publishing. What are the reasons for this situation? Are there examples of publishers which have broken withthis cycle and been more successful across other kinds of publishing?

BW: The last 20 years have seen remarkable progress in the production and distribution of education materials. Many centres of excellenceemerged. This includes the East Africa region, including Kenya and Uganda as examples; Southern Africa, including South Africa and Zimbabwe;West Africa, including Nigeria and Ghana; and North Africa, including Egypt and Tunisia. This progress saw a great part of the continentmove away from importing textbook materials to producing them locally. In the majority of cases these are good quality materials that meetthe needs of local education fully. These decades also saw the development of local professional publishers and the establishment of localcompanies. This was buoyed by the development of strong local publishers’ associations, book fairs and regional and sub-regional bookdevelopment organisations like APNET, PABA and the East African Book Development Association. These organisations implemented capacitybuilding programmes that helped professionalise and strengthened local publishing. In some of these countries close to 100% of all booksused in their education sector are produced locally. The gains in education publishing and the various reading campaigns have also improvedgeneral publishing and improved distribution outlets for general readers. Notable achievements in this regard include Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya,South Africa and Zimbabwe, before the current economic and social crisis. Despite this progress, a lot more still has to happen to create anindustry that is less dependent on textbooks and government procurement. These gains are likely to be eroded by negative developments thatare mainly driven by a desire by education authorities to achieve universal access to education materials. This is leading to initiativeslike state publishing, the call for additional exceptions to copyright on education materials and in some cases severe limiting of thenumber of approved titles.

7. SK: At the 2018 Frankfurt Book Fair, ‘ProgrammeLettres d’Afrique: changing the narrative’you spoke memorably about a ‘crisis of access’ in education, schools and educational publishing in the African continent; this could alsoarguably characterise the academic sector too. Could you say more about what you meant by this ‘crisis of access’ – its roots, the demandfor universal education and access to materials, which is still primarily through printed books in the case of schools. You also discussedwhat you characterised as ‘negative policy developments’ ensuing from this access crisis as symptoms of what actors are doing wrong. Couldyou elaborate on this?

BW: What I describe as the crisis of access is the feeling and to a great extent the fact that the success of local publishing that Idescribed earlier has not necessarily led to the expected universal coverage of textbooks in the education sector. Governments and educationauthorities are facing huge social pressure for access to services, including education. The part that affects the industry most is accessto textbooks. The education authorities in many African countries today are thinking of changing copyright and procurement laws to enhanceaccess to textbooks. For example the Africa Group on the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) are pushing togetherfor copyright reform that would create greater access to education materials for education, libraries and archives. South Africa has goneahead and created a Bill that seeks among other things to achieve this. In the publishing area, both South Africa and Rwanda are close tostate publishing while other countries like Cameroon and Kenya are implementing one textbook policies. The problem is that additionalexceptions which weaken copyright protection for greater access to education undermine the base of the African education publishing sector.The argument is often that these exceptions are only for education. Yet, with education accounting in many cases for more than 90% of thebook sector, there is very little left outside education. On the other hand, state publishing and one textbook policies will also negativelyaffect the education publishing sector. State publishing has the potential to wipe out education publishing while one textbook policies willcertainly reduce the commercial space for education publishers. Although this is aimed at education books, it will have ripple effects forthe whole publishing sector. Developments in both copyright and textbook procurement pose a serious challenge to the viability of theAfrican education publishing sector and the continent’s ability to produce suitable education materials for local education. 

8. SK: Continuing on these policy developments, would you say some more about the Copyright Amendment Bill in South Africa?What’s at stake here? It strikes me that all who are concerned with publishing and knowledge production in Africa, sometimes now framedin terms of ‘decolonisation’, need to be alert to and engage with these developments.

BW: The Copyright Amendment Bill is the result of a comprehensive legislative process that has been on the cards for a long time. Amongother objectives, it seeks to enhance access to education materials by allowing additional exceptions to copyright protection on educationmaterials, including in the schools and post-schools sector. It also seeks to regulate collecting societies and to enhance the benefits ofcopyright protection for authors and creators. The Bill has many positive elements but also some very problematic provisions for rightsholders and creators, especially the fair use provision for education. Publishers and authors have issues with the content of the Bill andalso the process followed. For example a law with such huge potential implications needs to have an impact assessment done on it, but thereis none. The only one that was commissioned by the Publishers’ Association with PricewaterhouseCooper (PwC) indicates that the sector willbe adversely affected with reduced output, loss of income and significant job losses. It also points out that local production and exportswill suffer and imports are likely to increase. Rights holders argue that their inputs were disregarded on critical issues and that the Billis at odds with international copyright statutes. On the other hand, advocates of greater access for education find a lot of positives withthe Bill, especially around greater access to education materials through the fair use provisions. The Bill also lumps together quite anumber of very different sectors, including music and book publishing without looking into the nuances of each. The parliamentary committeethat was working on the Bill has passed it and it is now waiting to go through the National Council of Provinces legislators before it issigned into law. There is a strong chance that it will be challenged in the constitutional court. It is ironic that a bill that started withthe objective of ensuring that authors benefit more from their work is very likely to result in reduced income for them and is also likelyto result in reduced local production of content and a concomitant increase in imports. If this happens, as feared, it will have taken theindustry back many years. I analyse the contradiction of the Bill’s attempt to empower authors and enhance access at the same time in thisextensive article, ‘Copyright reform: Carrying water and fire in the same mouth’ published by the DailyMaverick earlierthis year. Local knowledge production and publishing are part and parcel of the decolonisation discourse. If the local sector is underminedlike this, it will be a setback for the decolonisation agenda too. If the campaigners for the decolonisation of curricula want to go beyondrhetoric and slogans, these developments should concern them too. 

9. SK: What are ‘open educational resources’? What are these in an African context?

BW: Open Education Resources (OERs) are freely available and freely licensed education materials, including textbooks, text, media,photographs, digital assets and other materials that aid teaching and learning. In some cases, they include full courses and assessmenttools. Given the greater need for education materials in Africa, the idea of OERs is quite appealing to educators and policy makers.Initially I think OERs were oversold as solutions for access to education materials and an effective substitute for textbooks but it lookslike there is a realisation that most of the OERs are not especially designed as curriculum management and implementation tools, the sameway that textbooks are. While they are suitable as supplementary tools, they cannot substitute a good textbook. There is greater realisationamong educators and publishers in Africa that traditional textbooks and OERs can complement each other. For example, in South Africa theDepartment of Basic Education has created a healthy mix of commercially produced textbooks, OERs and state published supplementarymaterials. This mix up to this point has not harmed the publishing industry. I think publishers have over the last few years come to termswith OERs and the role they can play in education, and do not perceive them as big a threat as they thought initially.

10. SK: Stepping beyond the African context for a few moments, publishing in Africa is, of course, integrated into globalmarkets and technologies. There are intense debates elsewhere on the likely effects of the so-called ‘platform economies’ (searchengines and the like) on research and publishing economies and how academia and the publishing industries should respond and positionthemselves. What’s at stake for African publishers in all this? What are the risks? Are there ways publishers in Africa can takeadvantage of such economies? I’m thinking for example of harnessing them for efficient distribution of unique and hard to accesscontent. 

BW: Many attempts to launch e-learning and learning platforms in many parts of the continent, including South Africa, have met significantchallenges. These challenges include infrastructural and bandwidth problems, security for learners who become targets of criminals who wanttheir devices and teacher reluctance to adopt new ways. Despite these, it is clear that the “platform economies” are the future andtraditional publishers need to gear themselves for this and participate in the promotion of e-learning, digital content and distribution.Many content aggregators are joining the book sector and beginning to play a significant role in the distribution of content, especially ineducation. However, a new business model needs to be developed as a matter of urgency. The efficacy of digital content and e-learning andtheir potential to improve learning outcomes in a region where this is a priority is not questionable but the economics of it remains achallenge. The transition is taking too long and costing education authorities a lot more. Due to the hesitancy to move on to e-learning anddigital content in education, the majority of schools and colleges remain in the dual medium and are spending on both digital and printcontent, for example. On the other hand, publishers are finding it difficult to implement new business models in this dual mediumenvironment. The result is that the expected savings of digital are not being realised. This compounds the crisis of access that I mentionedearlier. The new business model needs to be informed by a reconfiguration of the different roles that traditional publishers and platformand conduit operators play. Platform operators should not undermine the role that rights holders play, in an attempt to assert their ownrole in education. One of the key contentions around the copyright Bill in South Africa is the fear that fair use provisions will allowplatform owners to use rights holders’ content without compensation. Indeed, one of the fears that policy makers have is the restrictionthat copyright protection will have on education materials in the digital era. The belief is that digital will open up access to content,but copyright will restrict that access. That polarity is not helpful at all. Platform operators can play a vital role in the distributionof content and management of content while publishers can continue to develop content and enhanced digital content that can improve learningoutcomes.