African Publishing: Challenges and Opportunities

By Ruth Makotsi, Executive Secretary, East African Book Development Association

Introduction

I would compare African publishing to a child learning to swim; has the love and
motivation for the sport but limited skills with which to beat the currents.

Unlike Europe and Asia’s publishing industries which continue to flourish almost
entirely on their own markets, Africa’s book sector requires external aid to stay afloat.
Book markets in Africa are small largely because of low reading habits among the
people. And, although African publishing has registered significant progress over the
last two decades, both in terms of output and quality, the industry is still largely
underdeveloped. The continent’s book sector is the smallest in the world,
contributing less than 2% to the World’s book market despite the fact that its citizenry
accounts for 12%1 of the World’s population.

The reasons for Africa’s underdeveloped book sector are known and are many. These
can be explained at three macro-levels namely, historical, economic and socio-cultural
limitations.

History’s effect on African Publishing

Historically, the influences of slavery and colonialism have been blamed for initiating
the marginalisation of Africa and its people, for brain drain and suppression of
creativity. It was not until towards the end of the 19th century that books and reading
were introduced to the continent, mainly through imports from Europe. And while
England‘s Daniel Defoe‘s Robinson Crusoe was selling in 1719, it was not until the
1930s that a handful of African creative writers were published, mostly abroad2.
Africa’s book sector thus began with two Century laps to catch up.

Furthermore, when local publishing was introduced in earnest at independence it was

through state publishing. This was part of newly formed African governments’ way
of indigenising the provision of education. From the outset therefore, publishing in
Africa did not nurture creative writing but instead centred on textbook production in
tune with the education systems at the time. This trend, which persists to date, has
rendered African publishing a textbook affair and contributed to the lack of a reading
culture, stunted book markets, low turnovers and hence an undercapitalised,
underdeveloped industry.

The Effects of Weak African Economies on Publishing

Weak governance, mismanagement of resources and general underdevelopment have

rendered the continent poor. According to World Bank Development Indicators, the
combined Sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP in 2007 was only US $ 843 Billion compared to
Sweden’s US $ 444 Billion. Of Africa’s 620 million people, 50% live below the
1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population
2
Early creative writers include Azikiwe of Nigeria Renascent Africa (1937), Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana Towards
Colonial Freedom (1941), Jomo Kenyatta Facing Mount Kenya (1938), and much later, Chinua Achebe Things
Fall Apart 1958).

1
poverty line (on less than a $ a day).3 Ironically, Africa imports close to 70% of its
book needs, mostly tertiary and vocational training books costing as high as US $ 25 a
copy4. Although these are the areas in which books are most required, majority of the
people can ill afford them. Locally published books are not much less expensive
given the high taxation levied on book printing paper. Reading in Africa can
therefore be said to be a privilege of the few well-to-do.

The low returns from publishing businesses have thus scared-off would be investors,
stunting the growth of this industry. So small is the book sector that governments
seem to have considered it undeserving of sound legislation as can be evidenced in the
absence of national book policies in most countries.

Socio-cultural Limitations to Promotion of Reading in Africa

Socially, high illiteracy levels in Africa are partially responsible for suppressing
readership. Approaches to literacy development mostly undertaken by governments
are under funded, inconsistent and inadequate. One of their shortcomings is the
unavailability of appropriate reading and teaching material in local languages for
adult learners and for the more than 200 million people who can only read in their
local languages. Although publishers have convincingly argued that publishing in
local languages is not economically viable (because only a few hundreds to thousands
of people would read any one language), this problem is amplified by the lack of
sound language policies to promote local languages. As a result, close to 80% of
people who live in rural areas, where local languages are the mediums of literacy, are
not catered for. This has limited book markets and restricted diversification of
publishing programmes.

Indigenous African Publishing: Rekindling the Cultural Identity

The last two decades have witnessed some positive changes that have helped bolster
African publishing amidst the myriad of problems stated above.

The 1980s and 90s authoritarian regimes of the second-generation African

governments banned any literature that attempted to criticize their style of leadership.
A number of African writers fled the continent in fear of being arrested, detained or
even assassinated. Books by African writers such as Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe
and Ngugi wa Thiong’o were banned from use in schools and replaced by the more
subtle imported classics by Northern writers like Bertolt Brecht and Roger Miller.

This suppression and censorship led to protests by indigenous publishers supported by

Northern agencies. One of the landmark forums that brought indigenous African
publishers together to consolidate their struggle was the Dag Hammarskjold
Foundation’s seminar on ‘Autonomous African Publishing’ in 1984. The directors of
the seminar observed that,

‘It stands no reason that if books are supplied from the outside,
particularly by the trans-national corporations, their power to effect
the development of the countries of the South will be similarly
3
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators, Sub-Saharan Africa, 2007
4
Expanding the Book Trade Across Africa, Ruth Makotsi (ADEA/APNET, 2000) pp 2

2
 influenced by external interest, both political and economic. At their
worst, these publications promote seriously distorted and dangerous
messages about history, culture and the value of Third World
societies.5’

By the early 90s, the campaign for indigenous publishing in Africa had swept across
the continent. Northern donors to culture, such as Sida, Danida, Hivos, etc, co-
ordinated by the Bellagio Publishing Network from UK, became sufficiently
convinced of the necessity to develop indigenous knowledge and consequently
supported the establishment the African Publishers Network (APNET).

APNET was established in 1992 with its secretariat in Harare, Zimbabwe, actively
lobbied for the formulation of more favourable textbook provision policies in the
World Bank funded government book schemes. It also opened doors for African
publishers to travel to international book fairs from where they gathered ideas and
marketed their books. It facilitated the establishment of national publishers
associations and launched training programmes for members in editorial, production
and management skills. More indigenous publishing houses have been set up, the
output in general books, especially academic and children’s literature continues to
expand, and to a little extent the quality of books is improving.

Creative Literature as a Catalyst to Publishing in Africa

Despite the cited developments, the level of book publishing is still insufficient in
meeting the Africa’s 60% literate population. A survey published by APNET in
20006 revealed that the top 5 Sub-Saharan African publishing countries (South Africa,
Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Namibia) produce less than 4 500 new titles annually,
of which about 75% are textbooks. That means, only about 1 125 general titles are
published by the approximately 550 publishers in these countries. Kenya‘s 60
publishers, for example, issue less than 50 new titles annually (excluding children‘s
readers), which constitutes one quarter of Britain’s Faber and Faber Publishers’
output.

Yet, the scenario has not always been grey. African creative writing has produced
several world famous international award winners such as Ngugi wa Thiong’o,
Chinua Achebe, Ben Okri, Wole Soyinka, Dennis Brutus, Nadine Gordimer, Naquib
Mafouz, Nurudin Farah and recently, Chenjerai Howe, Shimmer Chinodya, Yvonne
Vera, Nelson Habila or Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, among others. Their writings
are acclaimed for reflecting Africa’s cultural identity, highlighting her plight and
‘capturing the people’s optimism and apprehensions of the time’7. Unfortunately,
most of these writers are published outside the continent.

Therefore, for African publishing to expand significantly and to become

internationally recognised, African publishers will need to find ways of retaining such
celebrated writers while also taking time to develop others at home who could have
the creativity to capture the issues affecting the continent today. The number of
5
Development Dialogue 1997:1-2
6
Expanding the Book Trade Across Africa, Ruth Makotsi (ADEA/APNET, 2000) p
7
Essays on African Writing 2: Contemporary Literature, Ed. Abdulrazak Gurnah,
HEB, 1995, pp. v

3
possible topics that are in dire need of international discourse is unlimited. Books on
issues surrounding the wanton clan and ethnic wars in Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi and
the Congo; the oil tussles in Sudan; the dictatorship government of Zimbabwe, etc
would appeal both to the local markets as well as to those abroad.

One of the ways the publication of such creative works could be facilitated is through
literary awards. Awards are useful in promoting writers and their works and, in this
respect, bringing to the attention of readers Africa’s literary potential. Regrettably,
most distinguished literary awards that cover Africa such as the Nobel Prize for
Literature, the Booker Prize for Fiction, Noma Award for Publishing in Africa, the
Commonwealth Writers Prize, and Caine Prize for African Writing are all externally
sponsored. There’s therefore need for similar awards to be launched on the continent
as a way of stimulating more interest in creative writing, motivating young and
upcoming authors and increasing the output in general literature. These should
recognise areas such as cultural and African language books in which there are fewer
creative works.

The Place of Language in African Publishing and Development

Local language publishing in Africa has not had as much success on the continent as
would be expected. Apart from South Africa, where major local languages have been
developed as mediums of instruction in schools and as languages of study, the only
other country which can be said to publish in African languages is Tanzania.

Unfortunately, most of Tanzanian books are textbooks. With Kenya being the only
other country in which a sizable number of people speak Kiswahili, markets for
Tanzania’s books are too inadequate to support general publishing.

It should also be emphasized that language is an important vessel for communicating

development-al messages. Therefore, if literacy in Africa is to play a more effective
role in the transfer of knowledge and skills, then the language of communication
should be predominantly African. As the respected African scholar, Professor Ali
Mazrui asks,

“Can any country approximate first rank economic development

if it relies overwhelmingly on foreign languages for its discourse on
development and retransformation? Will Africa ever effectively
‘take off’ when it is so tightly held hostage to the languages of the
former imperial powers?8”

Availability of books in local languages would ensure access to information on how

to address the pertinent challenge of poverty reduction dogging almost all African
countries. Consequently, it will enable local publishers the opportunity of expanding
markets to the vast rural communities who make up 80% of the literate population.

However, African publishers themselves must step up their campaign for formulation
of appropriate policies towards the promotion of African language books. Indeed,
they have adequate justification for such an advocacy programme. As Walter Bgoya,
a Tanzanian publisher, explains,
8

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 “ Language carries with it visions of the society that speaks it;
Language is a corpus of knowledge, of sensibilities and identities,
all of which will be lost if the language is not retained.9”

With increased urbanisation and migration, many African children born in towns and
cities, where the official and spoken language is either English or French, have no
way of learning their ‘mother-tongue’ because no books have been published in them.
This scenario has been blamed for the ‘culture-clash’ in African cities and for
increased loss of moral values present among the youth. Increased publishing of local
language books would additionally ensure the preservation Africa’s heritage and
traditions and safeguard against moral degradation.

Book Sector Development and Reading Promotion

In most African languages, the term ‘to read’ also means ‘to go to school’. This
situation is historical in that when the early missionaries first introduced education on
the continent, the methodology they adopted was formal instruction. Further, the
education content they offered was limited to foreign concepts such as Christianity,
Arithmetic and the study of English or French languages and literature. This
approach led to the notion that learning can only take place within a school
environment and that books are a source of foreign concepts that are superior to
indigenous knowledge. As a result, locally published books were shunned by African
learners.

This misconception persists to date and is responsible for the existing textbook-
centred curricula, the lack of libraries, preference for imported books and the poor
reading habits, all of which mitigate the growth of local publishing.

Efforts on expanding local publishing should therefore be concentrated on changing

the thinking of curriculum developers for them to understand that education can only
be fully relevant to the learners if its content reflects the local environment. Further,
in order to make literacy functional the inclusion of local knowledge in textbooks is
necessary. Thus, the concept of life-long learning can only be realised if a reading
culture is nurtured as part and parcel of the literacy programmes. To this end,
reading promotion efforts need to be taken beyond the classroom to the home, work
and leisure environments.

Libraries as Tool for Developing the Reading Culture

The biggest obstacle to library development in Africa is poverty. The adoption of

Universal Basic Education has meant that funds allocated to book purchases give
priority to textbooks. Due to the prevalent high levels of poverty, coupled with high
book prices, parents cannot afford to buy general reading material. Therefore
learners, especially children, have no access to general reading material either in
school or at home.

9
Bgoya, W, ‘Publishing in Africa: Culture and Development,’ in The African Writers Handbook, ABC,
1999,

5
Whereas a supportive library network would give the poorer learners access to free
reading material, majority of schools and communities in Sub-Saharan Africa do not
have libraries. Where some semblance of a library exists, it is often no more than a
few shelves of outdated and worn out material10.

For the book industry to expand, deliberate and increased efforts need to be put into
the development of libraries in schools and communities. Availability of libraries
would ensure access to books by the majority public and nurture in them a love for
reading that would influence book buying habits beyond textbook materials. In turn,
the expansion of markets for general books will necessitate the writing and
publication of more books, hence the growth of the sector.

The Need for a Legal Framework on Book Sector Development

African published books are fairly expensive and yet the quality, in terms of
production, is evidently low. The problem of high book prices is as a direct result of
high book production costs. This has contributed to the market’s preference of
imported books and rampant piracy. Good quality paper is not easily available in
Africa, except South Africa, although import duty inflates its price thus minimising
exports to other African countries. Additionally, printing technology in most
countries, except South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Nigeria, is still dated. In
order to produce durable, affordably priced books, most publishers from Africa are
opting to print in Mauritius, India and Hong Kong where the quality is better but less
costly. As a result, local printing industries are underdeveloped.

Additionally, because of lack of recognition of the book sector by governments,

educational institutions have not been giving priority to publishing training.
Publishing at university level is taught in only three countries; Kenya, South Africa
and Ghana. The lack of skills in book production and book selling are also
contributors to the low quality of locally produced books.

A remedy to high prices and to poor production quality would be reduction or

removal of taxes and import duty on book production inputs, especially paper and ink.
This would result into growth of local printing industries, lowered production costs
and reduced prices.

Additionally, there is need for enactment of comprehensive book policies to facilitate

book development across the chain; from authorship to publishing and distribution.
Such policies would ensure access to training by industry personnel, application of
favourable book supply systems within the ministries of education, expansion and
regulation of book trade within countries and across the continent and control of
piracy.

Conclusion

10
Education for All 2000 Assessment, Thematic Studies: Textbooks and Learning Materials 1990-99, Ian Montages (UNESCO,
ADEA, 2001) p27

6
The responsibility of developing African publishing requires joint effort of all
stakeholders including the private book practitioners themselves, government and
development partners.

It is unfortunate to note that most development partners that were active in facilitating
the development of African publishing in the 80s and 90s, as part of their support to
development of cultural industries, have recently changed their policies. Most are
now according priority to political sectors such as democracy and gender, to
humanitarian sectors such as health and to emergency cases as a result of wars that
seem to have broken up in all regions on the continent. This has resulted in the
reduction of budgets to culture or the closing these departments altogether.

Secondly, development partners seem to have once again shifted their funding
policies from channelling support through non-governmental organisations to
working with governments. This decision, it would seem, has been taken prematurely
considering that the newly launched NEPAD concept of Private Public Partnerships is
yet to fully take root in most countries.

The publishing sector in Africa is already suffering from the effects of these policy
changes among the development partners. Because the sector is largely private and
the problems affecting it, as outlined above are largely being addressed by non-
governmental organisations which depend entirely on external donor funding, most
project in book sector development have wound up. There’s therefore need for
development partners to rethink their position if efforts in developing African
publishing are to continue.

Additionally, stakeholders within the book sector in Africa should begin to nurture
and strengthen their co-operation with governments so that ongoing projects are
sufficiently expanded to fully address the highlighted impediments to the growth of
African Publishing. Partnerships at the local level, being home grown, are bound to be
more lasting and sustainable.