By Koketso Mamabolo
Celebrating World Book & Copyright Day
While the written word has been around for centuries, it was in 1995 that the UNESCO General Conference sat in Paris and declared the 23rd of April World Book and Copyright Day. The date’s significance comes from the authors who were born on that day, including Vladimir Nabokov, but also because on that day in 1616 Miguel de Cervantes, Shakespeare, and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega passed away.
It is a day about the power of books and reading, how knowledge is preserved and shared across generations. Books can trigger waves of change, igniting revolutions, shifting conversation across time, illuminating the most invisible corners of the world with simple words on a page.
A Page From Africa
Each year UNESCO, along with publishers, booksellers and libraries, select a World Book Capital. There have been 26 capitals since the initiative began in 2001. The World Book Capital this year is Rabat, Morocco, which boasts 54 publishing houses and hosts the third largest international book and publishing fair in Africa. UNESCO and the World Book Capital Advisory Committee acknowledged the city’s work in literary development, uplifting women and youth by fighting illiteracy.
This comes a year after UNESCO released a report on Africa’s book industry which it calls the first-ever comprehensive overview of a sector which holds great potential. According to UNESCO, that potential is sitting in the tens of billions of dollars, if reforms are implemented.
The African Book Industry: Trends, Challenges & Opportunities for Growth report identified emerging talent, markets and a strong festival culture as the defining features of the industry.
Even with its rich tradition of novelists, poets, and playwrights whose words have broken borders and earned them recognition around the world – such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and other leading lights – there is a noticeable uptick in Africans taking home major literary awards. The report highlighted 2021 in particular, when the Nobel Prize, Booker Prize, and Prix Goncourt all went to African authors.
There are close to 300 events held annually on the continent with the support of over 200 professional associations, and despite a sparse network of bookshops, digital platforms are bringing books to a wider audience. Africa’s educational publishing sector represents 70% of the global market. But the continent is still lagging behind when it comes to overall publishing, accounting for less than 6% of the global publishing revenue. The continent imports hundreds of millions of dollars in books compared to $81-million in exports in 2023.
UNESCO’s recommendations cover everything from legislation and regulation to procurement, trade policies and technology and can be summarised on under three interventions needed from governments and decision-makers:
- Strengthening of legal and institutional frameworks
- Building stronger domestic markets
- Expanding readership and accessibility
“This new UNESCO report demonstrates the need to strengthen public policies for books and reading so that African stories can be written, published and read. Investments are therefore needed to propel the continent in the wake of its great authors and talents,” said UNESCO Director-General, Audrey Azoulay. The next generation of Nadine Gordimers and Chinua Achebes are counting on it.
Three South African Authors You Need To Know
Zakes Mda
Zanemvula Kizito Gatyeni “Zakes” Mda is one of the many great South Africans who hail from the Eastern Cape. The son of Rose Nompumelelo and struggle icon Ashbey Peter Solomzi “AP” Mda has had a career of note, from Lesotho, to the UK, America, and back. A teacher, novelist, playwright, poet, and sometime painter, he has published over twenty books including Ways of Dying, The Heart of Redness, and The Madonna of Excelsior.
Antjie Krog
If there is any book that best captures the emotion and tensions behind the transition to a new South Africa it is Antjie Krog’s Country of My Skull, a haunting account of her time as broadcast journalist for the SABC covering the TRC in the late 90s, and a must-read for anyone looking to understand how the country went about trying to mend the wounds of the past. The daughter of Afrikaans writer Dot Serfontein, Krog’s work spans over five decades and includes poems for children, a play, and translations of English, Dutch and Afrikaans literature.
Bessie Head
While she is considered one of South Africa’s great authors, most of Bessie Head’s writing took place in Botswana, which served as the backdrop of stories which capture her time in exile. The village she settled in was the setting of no less than three of her novels and a history book, Serowe: Village of the Rainwind. She was posthumously awarded the Order of Ikhamanga in Gold in 2003 for her “exceptional contribution to literature and the struggle for social change, freedom and peace.”
Sources: The Presidency | SA History Online | UNESCO
