Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Sign a Letter on Protesting/Promoting the African Writers Series

Many thanks for sharing this letter. It is well written and I have no doubt that you will get lots of signatories to the letter. I will not be signing the letter for a variety of reasons. 

1. Pearson is a for-profit industry; its decision to acquire the AWS collection was certainly not altruistic. They hoped to make money; they found out soon enough that it would not happen. They have every right to bail out. Perhaps the letter should have encouraged them to do public good by archiving the novels and making them available free to whomever wants to read them. There is simply no market for them. Who would want to read The Interpreters again for leisure, ever? Why? There is precedence for what I am suggesting; Indiana University has an excellent collection of Onitsha Market literature archived and available for free at: http://onitsha.diglib.ku.edu/

2. The letter makes the startling observation that the failure of Pearson to print these historical texts limits the choices of lecturers in teaching texts for African literature. Such an assertion is alarmingly false. Any serious lecturer worth his or her salt has more books and resources available to them to teach African literature. I don't understand why in the 21st century anyone would make such a claim. What I fear is that there is an urgent need to audit what folks are teaching and radically revamp the course offerings and content.

3. I think it is embarrassing that fully five decades after independence from colonialism, many African State's are openly anti-intellectual and allergic to promoting reading and writing. And so we are in this space where there seems to be a culture of entitlement and privilege where we are demanding of the West to help save our scripts and our stories. That I find quite embarrassing. The West, Pearson owes no one anything. Just get over yourselves.

4. This petition comes across as self-serving: I urge the petitioners to spend that energy to petition African states to do what you all are asking the West and Pearson to do: Treat this as an expense and publish these texts. I would be ecstatic of they converted them to electronic copies available to the world - free. Imagine that. The NLNG did not give out its $100,000 prize this year because it claimed there was no one deserving. The NLNG spends $1 million annually administering this prize. Imagine if a portion of that money was used each year promoting your ideals. And that is just one country. 

5. I have spent many years asking professors of African literature on this list and elsewhere what they do for a living. It just sounds from this letter that they are all stuck in the 20th. century mumbling about some dedicated exotica that rightfully belongs in the past. There are new names. History is important but this is getting absurd. I urge all of you to invest in innovation. Be bold and stop begging for handouts.

- Ikhide

On Oct 9, 2015, at 6:42 AM, 'Chambi Chachage' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:

LETTER REQUESTING PEARSON PUBLISHERS TO DO MORE IN PUBLISHING IN CONNECTION WITH THE AFRICAN WRITERS SERIES

Dear Sir,

We the below signed write to express our grave concern at the publishing policies of Pearson in relation to African fictional writing. When Pearson took over the Heinemann African Writers Series in 2011 the list included some 300 titles of poetry, novels, political and social thought, short stories and drama. The international community of African writers, scholars and readers of African literature were delighted that this seminal and iconic list was to be maintained. Indeed Pearson promised to develop the list and put out a call for new writing to add to its African publishing.

In September 2015 if one consults the list 72 titles are given. Of these 17 are not currently in print and only three appear with promised dates of publication. In all other cases Pearson simply says that there will be a reprint 'soon' – a listing which has in several cases now been posted for years. This means that out of the list acquired only 55 titles, or approximately one sixth, are still available.

Key texts not even listed any more include Okot p'Bitek's seminal poems Song of Lawino and Song of Okot which are foundational to any understanding of the development of modern African writing. Other hugely significant writers who have become casualties of the list include Alex La Guma, Taban lo Liyong, Sembene Ousmane, Ali Mazrui, Christopher Okigbo, Robert Serumaga, and Jack Mapanje, to name but a few. Recently even Nobel prize winner, Wole Soyinka's poetry volume, Poems of Black Africa, appears to have been dropped, while it appears his major novel, The Interpreters, never made it to Pearson. Every year, those of us teaching and reading African literature find we have less and less choice available to us.

We were particularly pleased with the idea of, and call for, new African writing put out by Pearson in 2012. In that year Amir Tag Elsir's, The Grub Hunter, was indeed published under the imprint of AWS, but three years later it is no longer listed.

It appears that having taken over the stewardship of the greatest single list of African writing, Pearson has no interest in maintaining or developing the fabulous riches of African literature. We appreciate that Pearson is a business, however we also doubt the good faith of the publisher which has reneged on promises to take over and build on its African writers series. We certainly continue to wish to purchase and teach many of these texts, and are now increasingly lacking the ability to introduce new readers to the treasury of modern African literature.

We ask Pearson to revisit its African Writers list and to explain why so many titles promised reprinting are not appearing, and why new publishing is not coming on line as promised. We would also like to know, at a time when so many publishers are able to deliver any text on their list through on demand printing, why even texts of less mass interest are not being made available.

Yours faithfully,

Professor Jane Plastow.  University of Leeds, UK

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Vicensia Shule <vicensiashule@yahoo.com>
To: Chambi Chachage <chambi78@yahoo.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 8, 2015 12:12 PM
Subject: Fw: PLEASE SIGN A LETTER PROTESTING AND THE RUNNING DOWN OF THE AFRICAN WRITERS SERIES BY PEARSON PUBLISHERS

On Wednesday, October 7, 2015 7:13 PM, Jane Plastow <J.E.Plastow@leeds.ac.uk> wrote:

Dear All,

Please read the attached letter which is protesting to Pearson Publishers about how they have radically run down the African writers Series after acquiring it from Heinemann. If you agree with the sentiments expressed please email me with your name, title, nationality and institutional affiliation and I will add your name to the list at the bottom of the letter. Also please pass this letter on to others who may be concerned and ask them to do the same thing. I'm just starting out with folks I know but surely there are many of us horrified at the running down of the list. I'll keep this open for a couple of weeks and see who has signed.

All best wishes,

Jane Plastow

Professor of African Theatre

University of Leeds

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