Goethe Institut brings African publishers to the Cape Town Book Fair

By Karin Schimke

Around 12 publishing houses from Africa will be represented at this year's Cape Town Book Fair (CTBF), due to grants extended by the Goethe Institut.

This will give lesser-known publishers a chance to introduce themselves to colleagues from other countries, and so help spread African literature further afield than just the continent.

Ulla Wester, head of library and information services for the Goethe Institut said: "Publishers from South Africa's neighbouring states have fantastic ideas, books and products, but they don't always have the means to travel to show their wares. The CTBF is the single most important book fair in sub-Saharan African, and yet not enough African publishers can come here, and we felt we wanted to help them and give them a chance also to show their products and to network."

She said German publishing houses are increasingly considering African books for translation and publication or for audio books.

Claudia Kaiser, Director of the CTBF said: "It's always been a problem to get publishers from other African countries to the fair because it's expensive for them to get to South Africa. So we are very happy that the Goethe Institut is stepping in with funds to help them."

The following publishers have been selected to take part in the programme: Thari-e-Ntsho Story Tellers from Botswana, Editions Tropieques from Cameroon, Woeli Publishing Services from Ghana, Focus Publishers Ltd from Kenya, E & V Publishers from Malawi, Cassava Republic Press from Nigeria, Rasmed Publications Ltd from Nigeria, BLD Editions from Senegal, MPB Enterprises from Tanzania, Netmedia Publishers Ltd from Uganda, amaBooks Publishers from Zimbabwe, and Zimbabwe Women Writers Association from Zimbabwe.

The CTBF itself is supporting the Goethe Institut grant by providing free space to the invited publishers and organising events for them that will help them hook up with publishers from other countries. The African Publishers' Network (APNET) is also contributing through organising and promoting programmes for these publishers.

The German book market has grown consistently in the past five years, in spite of the recent recession. Between 2006 and 2008 just under 100 000 new titles were published. Two years ago more than a billion books and print products were being produced in Germany for the first time. Of these, around 88% were first editions, while 12% were reprints. All this while publishers still maintained their backlists with an impressive 1.2 million older titles still available in print.

This German hunger for the written word is good news for African writers and publishers, because German readers appear to have one of the highest world-wide statistics for translated work.

Professor Ernst Fischer of the University of Mainz said studies have shown that as much as 76% of the books on the best-sellers lists could be by foreign authors, where in France and Italy this figure is only about 40%. And, says Fischer, "when it comes to suspense and entertainment, the German reader obviously prefers to put himself in the hands of foreign rather than native writers".

This bodes particularly well for the burgeoning African crime and suspense genre.

"Africa has always been very interesting for German publishers and readers," said Kaiser.

The Frankfurt Book Fair, for instance, runs a non-profit organisation which supports literature from Africa, South America, and Asia. According to Kaiser, it receives funds from the German Foreign office to translate titles from countries in those areas into German.

Brian Wafawarowa, Executive Director of the Publishers' Association of South Africa (PASA) and Chairman of the CTBF, said: "Like the boom in the Indian book trade, African publishers are experiencing marked growth, following increased literacy as well as international interest in African writers."

This year's Cape Town Book Fair will have a single day, 30 July 2010, dedicated only to members of the book trade: publishers, librarians, school librarians, teachers, agents, printers and translators. Seminars on, for instance, rights trading, e-books and African publishing will be run during this time. Fair organisers are actively match-making buyers and sellers.

Kaiser said: "The CTBF was launched in 2006 and has since developed into a successful public fair. However, now we feel that we need to take the book fair to a new level. It has the potential to be the largest international fair in Africa, the gateway to African publishing. In order to do this, we need to create a space and atmosphere in which professionals from the book trade and international exhibitors can find their counterparts."