For the first time Arts Alive’s programmes will include a literary component. This Saturday Xarra Bookshop in Newtown, Johannesburg, will host a panel discussion entitled The State of Indigenous Publishing in Africa.
Bibliophiles from across the continent will sit and deliberate on the challenges currently facing African publishing. These include publishers Tainie Mundondo (African Publishers Network); Kenya’s Sarah Mwangi (Focus Publishers); Nigerian Bankole Olayebi (Book Craft), who recently put out a coffee table edition of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart; local book critic Sabata-Mpho Mokae; and Paul Brickhill, creative director at African Synergy, a local entertainment and music promotions company.
After the discussion Arrest the Music: Fela and His Rebel Art and Politics by Tejumola Olaniyan will be launched.
Mundondo recently relocated to Zimbabwe after living in Ghana for three years working for Apnet, a network of national publishers associations in Africa. Apnet’s brief includes promoting African books, training of publishers, sharing of information, research and documenting the history of publishing on the continent.
The network also works on intellectual property aimed at protecting the industry against pirates and lobbying governments for favourable policies on education and the purchase of textbooks.
The Mail & Guardian sent Mundondo questions via email. These are her responses.
What were the difficulties Apnet faced in Zimbabwe?
Our main problem was lack of recognition by the government as a non-profit making NGO whose main objective was the promotion of indigenous African publishers. We could not be registered as a social service provider and so the General Council decided to relocate the organisation. We hope … it will work this time around.
Is Zimbabwe as robustly literate as it was in the 1980s and early 1990s?
I do not think it is still as literate because the cost of books is beyond the reach of most people. For people to buy books, even for the school system, they have to have disposable income, which has been difficult. In the 1980s education was free and from 1995 this changed and textbooks were no longer free, making it difficult for people to have disposable income to put into the purchase of general books. Whatever parents get now is put into textbooks and these do not do much to promote literacy. Some parents cannot even afford books because their incomes can hardly cover their basic requirements of food.
Can you compare the two environments. How developed is the Ghanaian market compared to Zimbabwe?
The Ghanaian environment is not different at all to Zimbabwe today. Even though Ghanaian schools get free textbooks at both primary and secondary levels, they do not seem to buy general reading books compared to Zimbabweans. If you look at their populations (Ghana has 21-million and Zimbabwe has 11,6-million) one would think that more books would be bought in Ghana, but the situation is not different at all.
Publishers put out more general and children’s books compared to Zimbabwe, but they also complain that the books do not sell at all and have been advocating government to purchase books for school and community libraries.
I think the South African situation is different as the government puts money into the purchase of both textbooks and general books as compared to the two other countries. At almost 48-million, South Africa’s population is much higher than the other two and this means more books are published.
What are the lessons to be learnt from Ghana’s experience in publishing?
The lessons from Ghana are that the publishers need to keep in constant contact with the Ministry of Education officials to update them on events that positively impact on education delivery and the availability of books for schools and for general reading. It is important to give free textbooks to schools and I am happy that South Africa has been giving free textbooks to schools. It means the government buys the books for schools, taking the burden away from families.
Another lesson is the importance being put on the publishing of books in local languages and the teaching of mother tongues in schools for the first three years of education. I believe South Africa has also implemented the same system and children are learning in their mother tongues in the first years in school. A lot of children’s books are being developed or translated into mother tongues in both Ghana and South Africa, which is a positive move that will improve on literacy.
How familiar are you with Nigeria’s publishing environment?
Nigeria has a huge population which publishers have failed to service fully. Unfortunately, the gap left by legal publishers has fallen prey to pirates and cartels, who have managed to outsmart the legal system. Publishers have tried and at some point taken the pirates’ books, but progress has been slow.
In terms of literacy, Nigeria is ahead of Ghana and Zimbabwe to some extent. Sometimes it gets difficult to see the improvements due to the use of the pigin language in Nigeria, which is an acceptable unofficial language in all regions.
The population of Nigeria is 150-million and the school-going children are 26-million in primary school and 11-million in secondary school. The government does not pay for textbooks at both levels, leaving the parents and some donor agencies to cater for the school-going children. From these figures one can easily see that the market is huge and therefore demands more attention from both local and external publishers.
Like Ghana and Zimbabwe, Nigeria is also struggling to put general books in libraries and revive the library system in communities and in school.
The discussion begins at 1pm at Xarra Bookshop in Newtown, Johnannesburg, on Saturday September 26.