Landscaping Postcoloniality. The Dissemination of Cameroon Anglophone Literature: The Dissemination of Cameroon Anglophone Literature

Chapter Three - The Book Chain and Anglophone Cameroon Literature

[49] Chapter Three The Book Chain and Anglophone Cameroon Literature In 1982 Nalova Lyonga and Bole Butake, two Anglophone Cameroonian critics, declared, “Cameroon literature in English is belatedly in the bud; still experimental in the main […] in terms of what has been published, both locally and abroad, there is very little indeed” (“Cameroon” 121). It is now twenty-six years since Butake and Lyonga made their assessment. The publishing climate has not changed significantly, although the corpus of literature has increased and Anglophone writers are slowly becoming known outside their immediate environment. Despite the importance of oral literature in Africa, it is generally accepted that the book makes the writer. The book as object begins its journey from the publisher with the intention of getting to the reader. Mary Jay, a senior consultant at the African Book Collective, explains in detail the role of a publisher thus: The publisher commissions a book, or evaluates unsolicited manuscripts; investigates co-publishing possibilities; edits the manuscript; develops a positive and dynamic working relationship with the author in terms of development of the book, contract, promotion and accountability; clears reproduction fees/copyright permissions; prepares an estimate of costs and sales, and sets price; oversees design and layout of the book; commissions illustrations; produces camera-ready copy, or manuscripts for typesetting; decides on print run; puts the printing back to tender; oversees and monitors the printing process; undertakes advance promotion; promotes and markets the published book, involving the author in, for example, reading, broadcasting, promotion tours etc.; distributes to booksellers; libraries, ministries, schools and universities, institutions, and individuals; […] The publisher is thus the center of the book publishing chain: writer, publisher, bookseller, reader (“Getting Published” 211). Although not all of these components are necessary for every title, the publisher remains the launching pad of the book chain. He sets the book in motion toward the reader and genuinely succeeds only when the book reaches the maximum number of target readers. [50] Setting the Stage: An Overview of Literary Publishing in Anglophone Africa Today publishing in Africa is generally in a crisis. The foremost publisher of African literature, Heinemann, announced in February 2003 that the forty-year-old African Writers Series that launched African literature onto the international market would be discontinued. The only types of books in Africa with a ready market are textbooks. Publishing of general literature has been quite slow. The economic crisis that has been ravaging the continent since the mid-eighties has led to the devaluation of currencies in many African nations. The importation of paper, ink, and other printing materials, which were already expensive, has become unattainable. International trade has proven unprofitable; most multinational publishers have reduced the number of African writers they publish each year and have closed some of their regional offices. Most of the indigenous publishers who were barely making ends meet have closed shop. Because of this, during the past two decades and a half critics have claimed that Africa is experiencing a “book draught” (Lindfors, “Desert” 123), Africa is in a “painful illiterate bind,” (Osundare qtd. In Gibbs and Mapanje, 188) and Africa has become a “bookless society.” (Zell, 309) These descriptions compare to what obtained during the first twenty-five years of independence in most Anglophone African nations. At independence, most books in Africa were imported from Europe. In the case of Anglophone Africa, the books came from Britain since the education syllabus was patterned after Britain. British multinational publishing houses like Oxford University Press (OUP), Macmillan, Heinemann, Nelson, and Longman dominated book publishing in Anglophone Africa. The nationalism that fueled the fight for independence in most African countries also led to the Africanization of the school syllabus. Literate Africans felt the need to write their own histories and literature to change the perception of Africans in Europeanauthored books. Since the publication of Nigerian Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart in 1958, which launched modern African Literature, literary creativity in Anglophone Africa has risen and fallen with the publishing fortunes of Nigeria. By 1972 when Achebe left the African Writers Series, Heinemann had published 100 titles; the 100th title was Achebe’s Girls at War. [51] These 100 titles showed a heavy presence of writers from Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, and Ghana. There are a few reasons that accounted for the early literary success of these countries. At independence they had all inherited viable infrastructures necessary for a literary culture, such as a...