Editorial
Katherine Salahi
Katherine Salahi is Co-ordinator, Bellagio Publishing Network
This issue, like the lives of all of us who knew him, is achingly overshadowed by the loss of Chief
Victor Nwankwo, engineer, writer, publisher,
campaigner, visionary and, above all, a remarkable human being
imbued with the spirit of ubuntu. His brutal death in Nigeria
has shocked and enraged a profession that is more
accustomed to publishing books about violence and intrigue
than experiencing it in real life. As yet we do not know
whether the murder was connected in any way to Chief
Nwankwo's publishing activities. Whatever the particular motive
for this particular crime, whether political intrigue or
mindless violence, it comes as a stark reminder of the
perilous conditions under which many of our colleagues labour.
Chief Nwankwo was cautiously optimistic about
the possibilities for democracy in Nigeria when
Abacha's murderous rule finally ended. But it was an angry man
who arrived in Oxford this June for the Bellagio
Publishing Network meeting, bringing with him a report he
had commissioned on our behalf about Nigeria's
International Book Fair. It was so openly critical of the
Nigerian government, and so scathing about its officials, that
we double-checked about publishing it as it stood. `Every
word', replied Victor, `Don't change anything.' We make
no apology for piling on the criticism of Nigeria's
government with Niyi Osundare's attack, while his writer's view
of publishers should, we hope, provoke illuminating responses.
Book fairs provide intriguing snapshots of the state
of publishing at a particular time in a particular place. In
the 1980s Africa's only consistently functioning book fairs
were in Egypt and Zimbabwe. Today, according to the
APNET trade calendar, there are at least 15 regular book fairs
on the continent, ranging from book week festivals to
national, regional and international fairs. This issue covers three
very different fairs that each reflect the specificities of
their location _ Nigeria, already referred to above; the
First Alexandria International Book Fair, linked to the
spectacular rebirth of Africa's most famous library of antiquity, and
at which not a single African country other than Egypt
was represented; and Bookeish!, planned for 2004, an
event that aims to address the special needs of post-apartheid
South Africa, and which we fervently hope will reach out to
the rest of Africa as much as to the north.
It was Moses Samkange of the Zimbabwe International Book
Fair who first thought of setting up a network of African book fair
directors, in order to address the many issues that they face in a more
co-operative fashion than happens at the moment. APNET and PABA have
ably demonstrated the professional value of networking among publishers
and booksellers. The nascent network of African book fair directors
and the proposed association of African scholarly journal editors reported
on in this issue are undoubtedly good news for publishing and book development
in Africa.
Book Aid International continues its sterling work
in books and library support for development by
facilitating the workshop reported on here, fostering
co-operation among different players in the book chain. The
African Book Collective's agreement with Michigan State
University Press for North American distribution is a milestone in
the dissemination of African-published books in the
north. CODESRIA's important initiative in developing a
truly African Africa Review of Books is especially welcome
as part of the long struggle for African voices to be
heard internationally on African terms.
Kwasi Darko-Ampem's policy review of publishing
for secondary education in Ghana raises many issues that
are pertinent beyond Ghana's borders. His particular focus
is the new policy privatizing educational publishing that
was announced in December 2001. Significantly, Ghana has
no national book policy. Policies that affect
indigenous publishing are a primary focus of this network and we
look forward to carrying more policy-oriented articles.
On the surface, publishing output in the
Democratic Republic of Congo belies all trends. In the teeth of
prolonged armed conflict and political turmoil, the number of
titles published in the past decade puts the DRC among the
most productive countries in Francophone Africa in terms
of publishing. But when Cassiau-Haurie dug deeper it was
to discover disturbing discrepancies between the number
of published works and size of reading public.
The recent meeting of the Bellagio Publishing
Network was convened to review our original mission and
explore possible ways forward. Several of the organizations
within the network, both southern and northern based, now
run significant programmes aimed at strengthening
indigenous southern publishing. Discussions centred on how
to complement and enhance existing work.
Information-sharing remains a priority for the participating
organizations within the Bellagio Publishing Network, as does the
need to define roles more clearly. The resounding message
from the meeting was the value in continuing to participate
in the forum that the Bellagio Publishing Network
provides, helping all of us work more effectively towards the
common goal of strengthening indigenous publishing in the south.[end] [BPN no 31, 2002, p. 2.]
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