I got into the world of publishing by happenstance. Before that, I was just hooked on books.
Book Worm with Tinashe Mushakavanhu
In boarding school, aged 13, I became known as the “professor”. My love for reading was legendary and my reading habits were not discriminatory, anything in black and white, so long as it gave me a new perspective on life or gave me a peek on other cultures.
Then university awakened my curiosity. Who writes the books? Who had the power to publish books? I started asking important questions about the politics of ownership and participation in the publishing industry, as well as the issues generated by representation, knowledge, language and literary, power and association, government policy and its impact on publishing as an industry.
The English Department at Midlands State University could not give me answers. It ignored these fundamental issues. It still does. Most of the lecturers were stuck up in the past, always regurgitating notes from long ago classes fossilised in yellowed paper files. As a result, the inadequacies of our university curricula are monumental.
And while Zimbabwe takes pride in its status as Africa’s most literate nation, the record is under serious threat considering the shambolic nature of our educational system (the dropping pass rates and a dysfunctional Zimsec); a collapsing publishing industry and poor reading culture. The future for the much younger generation looks bleaker than when I was growing up in the 1980s.
There was too much optimism and supportive infrastructure. The Zimbabwe International Book Fair was thriving and attracting the attention of book lovers from all over the world. Zimbabwean literature in English was booming — new and established writers were producing internationally acclaimed writings and the education system was being overseen by qualified personnel. There was commitment all round to produce graduates with value and purpose. All that has since gone.
It only took suicidal politics by “diehard” nationalists to kill all the promise, all the potential that the country had. The chaotic land reform, the free-falling Zim dollar, the violence and terror drove away the most talented and skilled of our compatriots into the wilderness of exile. Some are never to return. As a result mediocrity has been pushed up as the standard.
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If you throw a stone in the Harare crowds, how many shallow graduates can you hit? Nevermind.
Publishing is a strategic industry that requires government support, above all because it is vital to the rehabilitation of our ailing education system. The dearth of suitable teaching materials, especially books, is one of the overriding causes of declining literacy and falling educational standards in the country (the other being the shortage of qualified teachers). While book provision from external sources can play a useful role in the short term, there is no substitute for authentic, relevant book development and production by local publishers who know the requirements of our educational and cultural environment.
For publishing to truly become a strategic industry, a number of issues require urgent attention. Post Nziramasanga Commission of 1999, we are still a country with no “official” language policy and no national book policy. We are also in desperate need of new initiatives to secure adequate finance for local publishing. I am against donors being the primary funders of our publishing industry. Instead of packaging knowledge and ideas, it is easy for some publishers to be turned into “propaganda farm factories”.
It is about time the Zimbabwe government prioritised formulating policies that enable publishing to develop within a mainstream national development strategy. A national book policy will deal in a comprehensive way with all elements of book production, dissemination and use.
This requires a process of dialogue and close collaboration between government, publishers and all other component constituencies of the book chain. Perhaps, we could then easily get rid of the menace on our streets — the book pirates who have no decency to sell “real” books but faded copies printed overnight in the back of Harare’s dark corners.
It is about time too that Zimbabwe joined the electronic revolution by investing in digital printing. Essentially, print on demand will cut costs of overprinting, unsold stock and transportation.
Digital is indeed the future. However, the strategic function of local publishing and related industries will be realised only if, first of all, there is a clear analysis of the cultural context of books and reading. The creation of a reading culture is partly, and importantly, to do with the concrete provision of relevant books.
