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- 301 THE DIFFICULTIES OF PUBLISHING IN AFRICA RANDOM THOUGHTS ON THE CASAS PUBLISHING EXPERIENCE By Kwesi Kwaa Prah Introduction With respect to the topic I am addressing here, one can start by saying that, for years, Africans and African society have, amongst many other social and cultural disabilities, been characterised by poverty, illiteracy, a raging “book-famine” and a stunted book publishing infrastructure. The weaknesses of these areas of culture have mutually inter-bred and reinforced each other in a vicious circle. If you ask why so few books are read, many Africans will respond that they do not have enough money to buy books or there are hardly any books on the market or they cannot find the right types of books to buy. In Africa today, there is what is described by various observers as a “book famine”, that is a shortage of books, the pricing of books out of the financial reach of most people or the sheer unavailability of books. This problem is so serious that it affects all levels of our formal education systems. In our universities, libraries cannot afford the purchase of books especially because hard currency is very difficult to come by and African governments, in our difficult times, are unable to provide the resources necessary for the purchase of books from overseas. Beyond these formal educational systems, the book famine also ravages the informal reading public. There is very poor diversity in reading materials, and book-shops are few and far between. I can only whole-heartedly agree with the point made many years ago by Unwin (1960: 310 - 311) that, “with most commodities it is true to say if there is a ‘run’ on them they tend to become scarce, and their price to rise. With books it is the reverse. The more they are bought, the more readily available and cheaper they can become.” The Languages in which Literature is Produced There is the other more serious problem of the languages in which literature is produced. It is important to remember that only about 10 per cent of Africans can - 302 read and write the colonial languages with any degree of finesse. It is in these colonial languages that over 95 per cent of the literature currently circulating in Africa are written in. What this means is that only a few Africans are, in the first instance, able to read in the languages of what literature exists on the ground. Another point, worthwhile noting, is that the limited literature produced in African languages is mainly religious Christian materials, principally the Bible and allied literature. The other area of literature in African languages is almost restricted to a few newspapers, the most important of which appear in Kiswahili in East Africa. Newspapers Published in African Languages These Kiswahili newspapers are the most successful African language-based newspapers on the continent. We are informed that, currently, about 70 per cent of all Internet (WWW) content is in English. Only 12 languages out of the world’s alleged 6,000 or so account for about 98 per cent of the total web content. Kiswahili language, which constitutes over 80 per cent of the local media contents inTanzania, is not among the 12 languages which overwhelmingly account for internet coverage. In other words, Kiswahili is among more than “5,900 world languages”, which constitutes only two per cent of the Internet content. Furthermore, over 95 per cent of the Tanzania population can only speak, read and write in either Kiswahili or other local languages and hence cannot understand most of the contents on the Internet even if they can get access to it (Pambazuka News 2004). I am convinced that, in order to give the production of literature in African languages a sturdy kick-start we have to look, in the first instance, to newspaper production. If we produce newspapers in our languages, this will stimulate the appetite of Africans for reading materials beyond newspapers. Newspaper reading, by its very nature is compulsive, regular/daily, and routinised. It therefore lends itself to psychological enforcement, as a behavioural habit, reading. I have often argued that in fact, more papers in African languages were available to Africans during the colonial period than there are now. The elites and ruling groups in Africa are more favourably disposed to the production of literature in the colonial languages than literature in indigenous African languages; that is, literature which will cater for and reach the masses...

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