Book Review - The Book in Africa: Critical Debates by Caroline Davis and David Johnson

The Book in Africa: Critical Debates by Caroline Davis and David Johnson explores the publishing history of manuscripts in Africa.

The following book review was published by Research in African Literatures journal in 2021.

Citation: Paul, Aditi (2021), "The Book in Africa: Critical Debates by Caroline Davis, David Johnson Review by Aditi Paul", Research in African Literatures, 51(4): 251-253.

In 2012 at the Institute of English Studies, London University, “The Book in Africa Symposium” was held. Some of the presentations made in that symposium coupled with new case studies from across Africa on the manuscript tradition led to the publication of The Book in Africa: Critical Debates. In addition, this book is part of Palgrave Macmillan’s series titled New Directions in Book History that is exploring, documenting, and reassessing the neglected global history of print, script, and post-print cultures from antiquity to the twenty-first century.

The Book in Africa is an invaluable overview of the marginalized body of African scholarship that has been a by-product of European missionaries, colonial administrators, and traders. The book is divided into three sections and each chapter interconnects sociohistorical circumstances and literary scholarship: (1) the printing of oral manuscripts in different African contexts, (2) the relationship between the book and African politics and economics, and (3) the production, circulation, and reception of literary texts in Africa.

In the first section, Archie L. Dick examines reading culture from 1780 to 1840 in the Cape of Good Hope. He notes that the circulation of copied texts was widespread among the Cape inhabitants. Whether it was newspapers, religious scriptures, political propaganda leaflets, or schoolbooks, reading materials before the advent of the printing press were copied texts and reflected religious, social, class, and language divides. The author then claims that in the early 19th century, when print capitalism emerged, the motive for reading and circulating printed text changed to economic gains. Fawzi Abdulrazak charts the advent of the printing press in Morocco. He analyzes four phases of the government involvement in publishing: (1) 1865–71, when printing, finance and marketing, and quality control was under government jurisdiction; (2) 1871–97, when the government abandoned direct supervision but used printing for propaganda purposes and private citizens bore the responsibility; (3) 1897–1908, when publishers sponsored books for both charitable and profitable purposes and the government assumed the role of censor; and (4) 1908–12, when the government applied stringent controls over printing and exploited it for political drives. Likewise, Alessandro Gori, in his chapter, explores different phases in Ethiopian history that shaped Islamic printing. He argues that due to the intervention of the Emperor, print culture in Ethiopia had slower progress as compared with the countries wherein printing under Christian missionaries was flourishing. Shamil Jeppie captures the oral, written, and print tradition in Timbuktu. He discusses Ahmad Bul’araf, who turned Timbuktu into a repository of books through his collection of manuscripts.

In the second section, David Johnson challenges Benedict Anderson’s concept of imagined community and questions the possibility of print culture contributing to postcolonial South African nation-building. He argues that despite the reality reflected and realization among citizens, print literature lacked ideological influence on nation-building and, therefore, had a negligible impact. Carol Davis traces the history of African print culture of a British publisher: Longmans. Davis argues that Longmans circulated linguistic, historical, and anthropological knowledge about Africa through London-based publications and African education system, while indigenizing staff and publications and allowing governments, African authors, and educational institutions to establish alliances with Longmans. But what remains a mystery is the failure to keep Longmans publishing ventures and profits in Africa on record. Davis concludes by stating that the fragmentary remnants of Longmans’ commercial business in Africa is unbelievable and could be a conscious veil over the company’s history with reasons unknown. On the other hand, Giacomo Macola and Jack Hogan’s chapter discusses Lozi thinkers and how they used books as tools for propagating Lozi ethnicism. The authors argue that while histories and ethnographies of Lozi were reflected in vernacular ethnographic works, upon the advent of electronic material, the trend drifted away from postcolonial literature. Elizabeth Le Roux explores Witwatersrand University Press (WUP) and narrates how sociopolitical, economic, and ideational factors exert pressure on publishing activities of university presses. Le Roux contends that while WUP gained public trust because of its political mission and anti-apartheid publishing, the bibliographic analysis reveals that WUP never resisted government censorship and hence was not a radical, oppositional, and independent press.

In the last section, Ruth Bush and Claire Ducournau reflect on the role of a literary prize—Grand prix litteraire de l’Afrique noire—by the Association des ecrivains de langue francaise (ADELF). The chapter argues that the prize culture by ADELF for African writing in the French language moved beyond dominant ideas despite adhering to the politics of French cultural hegemony. Nourdin Bejjit examines the evolution of African literature and the success of Heinemann Educational Books (HEB). He explores the journey of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and argues that his shifting political ideas were synchronous with his relationship with HEB. In the last chapter, Joyce Ashuntantang discusses Anglophone Cameroonian writers of the 1960s and 1970s and their struggles with European, African, or Francophone Cameroon publishers. Ashuntantang argues that disappointed Anglophone Cameroonian writers established their own publishing houses and met success in publishing high-quality scholarly and creative writing. However, the advent of the internet encouraged Anglophone Cameroonian authors to self-publish and digitally promote their writings on social media sites and blogs. And while the “death of the book” is far away, the digital revolution did transform publishing and the dissemination of literature for authors.

The Book in Africa offers a commendable array of historical research that enables readers to comprehend the events at a given point in time. The book can be a reference book for those unfamiliar with the pre- and postcolonial history of publishing houses in Africa and the conflicting issues with which the writers jostled. Since the book peeks into the unexplored archives and overlooked studies that are the evolutionary links in the histography of African book culture, it does play a role in inciting interest in the lovers of African studies, postcolonial studies, and the history of print media.