CHANGING TIMES - CHANGING AFRICA

SABDET/ZIBF SEMINAR SERIES AT THE 2002 LONDON BOOK FAIR

Monday 18 March 2002, Club Room, National Hall, Olympia, London W1

Programme organised by the Southern African Book Development Education Trust (SABDET) in association with the Zimbabwe International Book Fair (ZIBF).

This report has been prepared by SABDET from notes taken during the seminars. It is freely available for use, but please credit SABDET and cite the SABDET/ZIBF seminar series at the 2002 London Book Fair as the source of the material. For further information contact Paul Westlake at sabdet@impz.demon.co.uk

Seminar Report

Seminar One 10am - 12noon

MARKETING AFRICA'S BEST

Chaired by:
ALASTAIR NIVEN, member of the judges' panel for Africa's 100 Best Books and chair of SABDET

Speakers:
KASSAHUN CHECOLE, president and publisher, Africa World Press Inc/Red Sea Press Inc, New Jersey/Asmara
presentation
ISOBEL DIXON, literary agent, Blake Friedmann Literary Agency, London presentation
WANGUI WA GORO, writer, translator and member of the judges' panel for Africa's 100 Best Books
presentation

PAUL WESTLAKE, SABDET administrator & treasurer, welcomed all those present and thanked speakers and audience for their participation. He thanked Danida for their sponsorship of the series, but pointed out that their decision to cut the three year funding that had been expected meant that SABDET could not guarantee that the series would continue after this year. He thanked the British Council for additional funding which had helped to fill the gap. He introduced the chair of the first seminar, ALASTAIR NIVEN, principal of the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Foundation of St. Catharine's at Cumberland Lodge in Windsor, and chair of SABDET.

ALASTAIR NIVEN: SABDET will do all in its power to ensure that the seminar series continues. The situation illustrates the vulnerability of such initiatives to political change.

The theme of the first seminar, Marketing Africa's Best, is intended to focus both on the Africa's 100 Best Books initiative and the wider issues of marketing both within Africa and internationally. Alastair Niven and Wangui wa Goro both served on the 100 Best Books panel of judges as did Kassahun Checole who was unable for personal reasons to take part in the final meeting in Ghana.

Bastardised Time, by Ali Jamali Ahmed, Somalia

Eighty years is a long time disown
Time's ingredients ingrained in the woof and warp of our memory
'Tattooed memory' charting its own myth
Those who learned to walk in its amubulatory
Pampered by fingers dipped in the viscerals of subdued time
Seem scared to venture into the open

As wobbly legs flounder in the deep recesses of Time gone
Confusing and confused Time present yield
Adumbrations of time yet unsired
Ululations of women turn to lamentations of widows
Ululations that readily lose their tinge of yesterday
Ululations that easily lost their glee of yesteryear
Like old rags too week to hang onto the dye
Reflective of time's cruel irony
That transplantations unmediated by wit
Rarely eschew the wrath of Time

Twice forty is a long time to wait
For Time's hand to undo Time's work
Yet as ululations lose their primal scream
And old clothes fray from every which-way
Time's work is undone by Time
And the old maxim in the God-forsaken console
(time and time again)
To destroy an elephant's bones
Seek help from those of a fellow elephant
For were it not for the hilt
Were it not for the handle
(Talk of Treason Supreme!)
Naked axes in bare hands would never fell a tree

(From Fear is a Cow, by Ali Jamali Ahmed. Reproduced here by kind permission of the publishers, Africa World Press)

There is nothing new under the sun to be conveyed to the seminar, but three principles need to be repeated:

1. "Know thyself" - know your product and its content, know who you are and what you are selling. African publishers often forget this. They question whether they have anything to sell and suspect that they have nothing to give to the rest of the world.
2. "The package is right, present it well" - a very simple principle, but critically important.
3. "Go up to the mountaintop and shout" - speak out about your products and your publishing company. African publishers never do this.

The question to ask is: what do we have to know about ourselves? As African publishers, writers, and intellectual property owners, we should exploit who we are. Are we ready for the world market? Are we ready to give? Do we know what it is we have to give? It is not true that we have nothing to sell, the question is, what have we done to present it?

Since time immemorial, people have gone to Africa to take what they want. They know that Africa has something to give. But Africans themselves are the last ones to take what Africa has to give. It is critical that we recognise our own weaknesses in this regard.

In the US intellectual market, Africans are the most significant and the most creative intellectual force. Science, technology and literature are all led by Africans. How has this come to be? Why does no-one else know? It is because Africans don't know themselves, they have not packaged themselves, they haven't shouted: 'We are the best'. It is critical that Africans realise that they have something to sell to the rest of the world. Africa is the youngest continent with the brightest generation but its intellectual output is not being used for Africa.

Trenton, New Jersey, where Africa World Press is based, has a logo: 'Trenton makes, the world takes'. This is a reference to the former porcelain and china industry in Trenton, now moved to another location. 'Africa makes, the world takes' - we have to promote our intellectuals and writers in similar fashion.

Two examples of how this can be done:
1. Two years ago I spotted a young Eritrean poet, Dr Reesom Haile, reading his work aloud in Asmara. Africa World Press went ahead and published his work under the title We Have Our Voice, connected him to the international poetry community and got him an invitation to New York from Arts International. Although he read entirely in Tigrinya, his presentation was such that he mesmerised the audience for two hours. Suddenly he is a national figure in the US and thousands of copies of his book have been sold.
2.The value of translations - Africa World Press has translated an Eritrean writer in Tigrinya, Alemseged Tesfai (Two Weeks in the Trenches) and an Ethiopian writer in Amharic, Haddis Alemayheu (Love Until Death). Love Until Death is a 900 page novel written in the complex 'wax and gold' technique of two levels of meaning and very difficult to translate into English. It is to be published in September 2002 and Africa World Press is organising an international conference in Washington DC to discuss the work. We'll be shouting.

After visiting the Alhambra, by Tanure Ojaide, Nigeria

My ancestors, the Moors,
shifted the Rio Darro for miles
to water gardens and supply baths
on the hilltop. They filled
gullies when it pleased
the sultan’s fancy to cross over;
they dug abysmal moats
to keep away intruders from
the paradise of tribal fortune.
Bone, marble and ivory
held together centuries of masonry.
My ancestors, the Moors,
with triumphant war-songs
built dungeons and temples
for their glory and God’s.
They had a year-round supply
of pomegranates, sweet granada.
Serene lions guarded them
as they held court or slept
in fountain-cooled rooms.
But who among the Nasrids
did not decree forced labour,
or keep a harem of slave women
now glamourized in retouched tales?
When heart leapt to heart,
the patriarch shed a river of blood—
only the cypress dying from age
carries memories of impossible love.
Architects and other artists diverted
the muse’s jewels to bedeck
conquerors and their concubines;
workers artistically wove garlands
of time-defying wonders
to decorate dynasties of war-lords.
Imperial cannons looked down
at the Albaicin and the plains—
today farmers are relieved of
the belfry’s barking orders.
My ancestors, the Moors,
from their reddish palace
cast such a possessing spell
that Garcia Lorca sleepwalked
his way to the turret, bowed
and even sang them a praise-song.

(Mojacar, Spain. November 19-20, 1999)

(From In the Kingdom of Songs, a collection of poetry by Tanure Ojaide. Reproduced here by kind permission of the publishers, Africa World Press)

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It's important to have more than one-off enthusiasms. The problem in African writing is that of continuity, the later books by a particular writer may not be published. It's not just a question of launching new authors, but ensuring that all their books are up there in the sky, orbiting around, available and accessible, to be shared and compared.

I represent writers from all over the world, for example, Nepal and New Zealand, as well as South Africa. Some comparisons can be made. The longer I live in Britain, the more I appreciate stories from Southern Africa. I love them not just because I am South African but for their intrinsic value. They are stories worth telling, stories that explain and convey the complexity of life in Africa.

Authors need to eat and to pay their bills. My concerns are to maximise their incomes to enable them to be full-time writers, and to maintain continuity. Both public and editors have a short memory span. Agents have to keep track of the editors who have both personal enthusiasm and corporate power, the editors who are able to keep the passion for a particular title undimmed right up to the moment it reaches the marketing and sales team. Publishers and agents also have to eat.

Two examples from clients in Cape Town:

An 80 year old blind poet who goes by the name of 'Tatamkhulu Afrika' - 'Grandfather Africa'. Of Egyptian parentage, adopted as a child. Now lives in a hut in someone's backyard on his Umkhonto we Sizwe pension and his writing. It's very hard to make a living from royalties from South African sales alone, and the international sales do make a difference. Arcadia is due to publish his novel Bitter Eden in May 2002.

An Afrikaans commercial crime writer, who has a fulltime job as a computing consultant, with young children. He can't justify the extra time spent on writing without the extra income from international deals. He's now South Africa's most widely published crime writer with editions in the UK, Bulgaria and elsewhere. Hodder have contracted a two book series using a particular character that he's developed.

Continuity means having enough time to write to publish a book every 2-3 years, to avoid disappearing off the radar screen. When you look at how it can be achieved, you can see parallels between Afrikaans and other African writers.

I also sell rights for publishers. Publishers have a duty to exploit any world rights they may have to the fullest, both for their authors' sake as well as for themselves. It's very important to be aware of all the opportunities for selling rights. There is nothing more tragic than a publisher which owns world rights of a book which is out of print, with no conversion clause back to the writer.

From Pitch to Publication, by Carole Blake of Blake Friedmann, is a guide to how to make money writing fiction and includes very useful material on contractual issues.

There is a tension between supporting the local publication of a work and supplying international publishing. Books need to be available both to the home market and more widely and generating income. For example, I have a Nepalese client writing in both Nepali and English. It's very important for her to be published both in the Indian subcontinent and distributed in Nepal. But Bitter Eden was turned down by most South African publishers because it was seen as not sufficiently South African-specific - it is set in an Italian prisoner-of-war camp.

There is a problem with English language rights being available to both South African publishers and publishers elsewhere, sometimes this can work against the author. For example, both Achmat Dangor, Kafka's Curse and Zakes Mda, Heart of Redness, have been sold to several European countries, the US and elsewhere, but neither author has been sold in Britain. The British publishers argue that the books will be hard to sell in significant numbers because the South African market has already gone. On the other hand, a British publisher may hold South African rights but not put much effort into selling into South Africa.

I am trying to work against the rigidity of the old publishing markets and encourage a more flexible approach, a willingness to split the market up in different ways to maximise the benefit for both writer and publisher.

There are differences between English English and South African English which can become an issue in translation from Afrikaans. For example, Triomf, by Marlene van Niekerk, was translated into two versions: the South African edition published by Jonathan Ball includes all the slang and the patois; the English edition by Little Brown is more accessible for a non-South African readership. This kind of approach isn't always possible. Two other titles with just one edition in translation are Breathing Space by Marita van der Vyver (Penguin UK and South Africa) and The Long Silence of Mario Salviati by Etienne van Heerden (Sceptre, UK and South Africa). In these books there is a glossary.

The stumbling blocks in dealing with the tension between the local and the international include both the quality of a translation and the quality of the editing. There can be a temptation to rush the editing to maximise deals and subsequent income.

Nurturing writers - working closely with them - is very important. It is not enough to have written one amazing masterpiece. A writer needs to build a body of work that can be studied and compared.

It is very clear from the examples I've given that there is no one route to cross the ocean, and that the ways in which things were done in the past are not necessarily the right ways for the future. To win flexibility from the international market it is necessary to build relationships of trust. It's very important to meet people and to develop those relationships.

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I am delighted to have been asked to be a 100 Best Books judge. I am a translator, and African literature has to be translated to reach elsewhere in Africa and the world. Maybe this is why I was invited to be a judge.

I am still excited about the 100 Best Books idea. The ZIBF rose to Professor Mazrui's challenge during the millennium year, when a published list of the 'world's best books' included none from Africa. It seems incomprehensible for a continent which is part of the international community and has produced three Nobel prize winners for literature - Naguib Mahfouz, Nadine Gordimer and Wole Soyinka.

The world has responded slowly to the initiative. At the close of nominations, about 1,700 titles had been nominated in a one and half year period. A panel of judges were selected, comprising, besides myself:

Samir Saad Khalil, deputy minister of culture, Egypt
Kassahun Checole, publisher and scholar
Bernard Magnier, journalist, editor and literary critic, France
Dr Adotey Bing, director of the Africa Centre, UK
Professor Nana Wilson-Tagoe, School of Oriental and African Studies, UK
Professor Ali Mazrui, the initiator of the project, who was not able to come to the final judging session in Ghana
Professor Thomas Odhiambo, Kenya, who was also not able to attend
Professor Fatima Mendonça, lecturer at the Eduardo Mondlane University, Mozambique
Professor Bankole Omotosho, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa
Professor Helge Ronning, University of Oslo, Norway
Professor Njabulo Ndebele, vice chancellor of the University of Cape Town, who chaired the panel
Dr Alastair Niven, UK
Dr Ato Quayson, University of Cambridge, UK
Dr Fatoumata Keita, senior lecturer at the University of Cocody, Ivory Coast
Dr Zifikile Mguni-Gambahaya, University of Zimbabwe
Professor Eldred Jones, Emeritus Professor, University of Sierra Leone

Also ex-officio member, Professor Alois Mlambo, University of Zimbabwe, who is a trustee of the Zimbabwe International Book Fair.

The first meeting of the judges in Zimbabwe in 2001 considered the general criteria, decided the modalities and identified key areas of writing to be reflected in the final list in addition to the criteria already set down by ZIBF: children's, literature in African languages, representation by gender and regional representation. It was also agreed that the whole century should be represented.

A key aspect for the jury was the justification for nominations. The jury was fair and firm. The discussions were difficult but very open and vigorous.

In addition to the list of 100 titles, it was decided to identify 12 titles to symbolically represent the range and depth of the whole list. These are:
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, 1958
Meshack Asare, Sosu's Call, 1999
Mariama Ba, Une si longue letter (So Long a Letter), 1979
Mia Couto, Terra Sonambula, 1992
Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions, 1988
Cheik Anta Diop, Antériorité des civilisations nègres (The African Origins of Civilization: Myth or Reality),1955
Assia Djebar, L'Amour, La fantasia, 1985
Naguib Mahfouz, The Cairo Trilogy, 1945
Thomas Mofolo, Chaka, 1925
Wole Soyinka, Ake, The Years of Childhood, 1981
Ngugi wa Thiongo, A Grain of Wheat, 1967
Leopold Sedar Senghor, Oeuvre Poetique, 1961

The list provides a powerful point of introduction to African literature. The process of identifying the 100 Best is not a closure but an exciting new departure and a new lease of life for literature which needs to claim its rightful place on the world stage. Africa is a centre for global production, but we haven't been good about shouting about our successes.

As a departure from the criteria, the judges also included a special commendation for the UNESCO General History of Africa, in 8 volumes. It was felt that this has made a significant contribution to knowledge and so many nominations were received for it.

My personal reflections are that this was an exciting and worthwhile project, and that the judges were representative of the community of interest in African writing. I hope that it will rekindle interest in African literature. It was enriching, and I learned a great deal. I hope that the books on the list which were new to me because in languages that I do not understand will be quickly translated. The list is contentious, and debate about it is both predictable and desired. We hope that people will continue to nominate their own preferences.

Looking to the future, what will come out of the list? My personal aspirations are that the books will be marketed, that they will be more widely read and known, that they will be taught in classrooms to give young people access to them, and that they will encourage new writing. Writing must be rigorous to stand up to the readers, and the list will set standards for the quality of both writing and marketing. I hope that it will become a focal point for further research and exploration of African writing. Finally, I hope that it will encourage more and more reading.

What can we do? We can tell people about the list. We can read the books themselves. We can use it to bring African literature to new markets. We can translate the books to make them accessible in all regions of Africa and all over the world. We can encourage publishers to reprint them and we can encourage the better known publishers to publish them.

Literature is about people and how we interact with each other. It is about developing understanding, enjoyment and exploration. I hope that the project will help to achieve all these.

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Questions and discussion

ALASTAIR NIVEN: Speaking as a 100 Best Books judge, I have adjudicated in a number of literary awards, and this is the most ambitious judging project I have been involved in. It depended on the judges' commitment and willingness to give up time to meetings extending over several days. It demanded a lot of diplomacy and intellectual stamina. All prizes have their limitations, and in this case there was a preponderance of anglophone judges. But the panel was generous, and we have ended up with a good number of francophone titles - though not enough in African languages. All of us had to rely on reports to judge titles in languages that we were not personally familiar with. Not enough quality children's books were nominated. Despite all the limitations, it was a very serious exercise, marked by the knowledge and dedication of the judges. In origin, the project was defensive and assertive: Africa's scholarly and creative reputation had been challenged. Now that the list exists, it's important that it affects educational choices, and leads to more translation and more republication. The final list was a compromise of each individual judge's personal preferences, but at the end of the day, all the judges felt proud of what had been achieved.

(It was noted at this point that Chinua Achebe's Arrow of God had been omitted from the list of titles distributed to seminar participants.)

The project was bedevilled by technical difficulties. The disc with the perfect list went astray and imperfections crept in. We hope that people will help in promoting it.

GRAEME BLOCH, director-designate of the South African International Festival of Books: The Festival is scheduled to be held in Cape Town in Feb/March 2004. The Festival has two intentions: to shout from the rooftops about South African writing in a global context, and to excite South Africans about books. One of our first projects is to pick up on 100 Best Books, to buy the titles comprising the list and to make them available to township youth groups and schools. We will have a competition for the first group to read all 100 titles, they will go on TV and take part in a writing workshop.

ALASTAIR NIVEN: The first celebration of the 100 Best Books will also be in Cape Town, in July 2002, under the patronage of Bishop Desmond Tutu.

DALHATU HAMZA, librarian at the British Council in Kano, Nigeria: The 100 Best Books judges should set a 1-2 year target for reviewing the list.

JOOP BERKHOUT, Spectrum Books, Nigeria: One problem with such a list is that the original publishers have in some cases lost interest. Wole Soyinka became dissatisfied with the original UK edition of his work and signed an agreement with Spectrum for all his books. Rex Collings the original publisher no longer exists. There are similar difficulties with Ben Okri's books. The key issue is who is the publisher today? Without Spectrum Books some of these titles would have died. The History of the Yorubas is another example where Routledge lost interest long ago.

ALASTAIR NIVEN: A point of clarification - the aim was to list the original publishers. There are mistakes on the list and it is being checked. In its present form it does not attempt to list the current publishers.

PAUL WESTLAKE, SABDET: The list in its present form is a bibliographic list not a marketing list. A marketing list needs to be compiled as part of the process of carrying the list forward.

JAMES CURREY, James Currey Publishers: As a British-based publisher we would support the inclusion of the relevant African publishers in future editions of the list.

INNOCENT OKORO, librarian, Nigeria: I agree that 10 years is too long a time before the list is reviewed and revised, I would suggest 5 years. I was previously chief polytechnic librarian in Enugu, Nigeria, and have undertaken research on the Nigerian book industry. A problem in African publishing is poor and hasty editorial work, poor finishing, poor copy editing, poor proof-reading. There tends to be a lack of division of labour within the publishing process, with 1 or 2 people doing all the tasks in small companies. I hope the trend of continued sales of African literature will now carry on.

ISOBEL DIXON: There are many fine African publishers. We should always aim for the highest standards.

KASSAHUN CHECOLE: Poor editing is not just an African problem but an issue for the whole industry.

WANGUI WA GORO: The issue of standards is very important. The books will face stiff competition. Poor packaging can kill a book.

ISOBEL DIXON: It can work both ways. Overseas publishers may be inclined to use African stereotypes for covers intended to appeal to overseas readers. They can be insulting to both writers and readers. It's important to get away from the image of 'the African book'.

MANU HERBSTEIN, writer, South Africa/Ghana: Can the panel comment on the implications of technological change for the distribution of African books. E-publication, print on demand, international databases of titles for local print on demand plants - all have tremendous potential for African bookshops which currently tend to stock a very limited range of titles.

ALASTAIR NIVEN: Note that Manu Herbstein is the author of the book that has just won the Best First Book (Africa region) in the 2002 Commonwealth Writers Prize (Ama, A Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade).

KASSAHUN CHECOLE: Technology is very important and we have to keep up with it. African publishers have to run double time. It's important to make books available in all media. Selling electronic rights to others with the appropriate expertise may be the most appropriate strategy for African publishers who are primarily book publishers. The book will remain the most vital medium in Africa for the forseeable future.

ISOBEL DIXON: Interest in the market for e-books is receding, but print on demand is very important especially for emerging markets. But it doesn't remove the need for marketing. Traditional marketing and promotion still have to be carried out to sell a print on demand title. Blake Friedmann link all rights, so that rights revert to authors unless a minimum number are sold per quarter. Rights should not be allowed to lie dormant.

RONKE ORIMALADE, chair, Pan-African Booksellers Association (PABA): The 100 Best Books is a wonderful list and I congratulate the jury. Before we market it to the world shouldn't we market it in Africa? This is where the African booksellers come in. There are difficulties in ordering books from neighbouring countries. Is there a way that African Books Collective or others can offer the books on the list at affordable prices for Africa?

BRIDGET IMPEY, Juta Publishers, South Africa: Print on demand in itself does not increase the distribution of a title. We mustn't just take books to the mountaintop, we must take them to the people. Booksellers are not always able to do this effectively. Publishers may have difficulty in encouraging booksellers to carry stock, so that they not effectively available.

MARY JAY, African Books Collective: It's a splendid list. But sourcing the titles will be a major problem. The list will generate demand and orders are already coming in for those titles stocked by ABC. ABC is keen to discuss sourcing and availability with PABA and others.

DIRK KOEHLER, World Bank: Jacob Epstein's print on demand company is working with the World Bank and UNDP on a POD programme in Africa. The aim is to install 5-10 machines over the next 18 months, dispersed across Africa. Local publishers or booksellers will print and distribute locally.

DAVID NG'ANGA, Oxford Brookes University: E-books are the best way to go for Africa. Internet technology is spreading across Africa and can overcome book distribution problems caused by lack of infrastructure. It will make books affordable.

BRIDGET IMPEY: Can the 100 Best Books titles be made available via POD?

ISOBEL DIXON: It's a question of tracing the rights holders. A flexible and adaptable approach is the way forward. We need to find a way to pool information.

STEVE TWEED, Macmillan Education: POD is fine, but it will only sell a few books, particularly monographs and specialist interest titles. Our job is to encourage more people to read, to get African books onto reading lists, to encourage governments and ministries to put African books onto African reading lists.

KASSAHUN CHECOLE:The different media can be used in different ways, we are not saying that one is better than another. The issues are: (1) who owns the content and how are these intellectual rights being used? (2) accessibility - who has access to POD technology? Africa World Press aims to work with foundations such as Gates to make computers available to schools, to make the Internet accessible. There is a cost issue here. We have to make use of all the available opportunities offered by the technology.

MOSES SAMKANGE, director, Zimbabwe International Book Fair: The ZIBF has consistently addressed the challenge of books crossing borders. We need funding for a warehouse in Africa to stock the 100 Best Books.

JOOP BERKHOUT: Suggests a sticker to identify each 100 Best Books title.

MOSES SAMKANGE: We are talking to publishers about the marketing, e.g. new dust covers and serialisation.

ALASTAIR NIVEN: There might now be a competition for Africa to suggest the 101^st title. My personal choice is Jagua Nana by Cyprian Ekwensi.

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