Rebuilding the reading and writing culture (interview)

Bibi Bakare-Yusuf: I was born in 1970 in Lagos and spent my early childhood there. I was sent to boarding school in England at the age 13. From there, I went on to study Anthropology and Communications at Goldsmith College, University of London. I then did an MA in Gender Studies at the University of Warwick, followed by a PhD. I moved back to Nigeria in 2003 to work as a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at Obafemi Awolowo University at the Centre for Gender Studies. Prior to setting up Cassava Republic Press in 2005, I worked as a consultant for UNIFEM, European Union, ActionAid and other development agencies.

I have always written ? mad scrawls in endless notebooks during my adolescence, trying to make sense of the world. I kept a diary from age 8 till I was 17 and then I stopped. I started attending writing groups and workshops in London. I wrote poetry initially, but I quickly realize that there were other poets and writers who were expressing what I wanted to say better than I could ever. So I stopped writing creatively, but intensified my reading of poetry and fiction.

I think the novels of Bessie Head were an important inspiration. I read all of her books in one go. Reading Bessie Head made me realize that it was possible to still the chaos of my thoughts by simply writing. However, music remains my greatest inspiration; the music of John Coltrane and Nina Simone ? always. They are the background melody to my thoughts, mood and writing life.

There are certain sets of questions I have about the relationship between culture, agency and memory that I am interested in, and they seem to lend themselves best to an academic style, especially because they are embedded within theoretical and philosophical terms of reference which I can maul over.

The name just came into my head. Cassava is a relatively affordable but nutritious food crop found across West Africa and in the African diaspora. I wanted a publishing house that will connect Africa to itself and its diaspora and vice versa. The idea of a Republic implies the end of a monarchy and a fresh start. It?s a name that once you?ve heard, you don?t forget. It makes you pause and reflect even if only for a moment about the critical and imaginative thinking that must have gone into the naming of a company that is not actually associated with the feeding of the belly. The strapline or slogan for the company is ?Feeding the African Imagination?, which fits nicely with our brand name.

Our primary objective is to be part of the effort to re-build a reading and writing culture in Nigeria. We do that by ensuring that high quality African literature is made available at the best quality and at an affordable price (as far under N1000 as possible) to as wide an audience. Apart from publishing well-known authors, we are also constantly on the look out for up and coming talent. We take on promising manuscripts and send them out to our team of editors around the world to develop. Finally, we organize tours for our authors to meet their readers and lead writing master classes.

Our focus on affordability and the need to find and develop local talent. We are about translating profit into social value by investing along with our partners and sponsors in writing workshops and writers-in-school programme.

Building a business in Nigeria is a real challenge, it is true. However, our goal is to find and develop talent on the ground here in Nigeria, so it makes a lot of sense to be here rather that overseas.

Apart from our publishing company, we also do contract-printing. That is, if you want your book printed, we can handle all aspects of the production, ensuring the highest possible production values and no defects. We also have a charitable arm of our business, which has the core goal of building libraries and learning centres across the country. We organize writing workshops in schools and for adults.

Our first major challenge was dealing with Nigerian printers. We have found that, sadly, it is not possible to get guaranteed and consistent quality at an affordable price in the country. This has forced us to use overseas printers for the moment. The other major issue is establishing a relationship with a bank. Nigerian banks are by and large clueless when it comes to dealing with small and medium size business who constitute the majority of businesses in the country, so it has not been possible to get the support that one would have needed. Another major challenge is getting good manuscripts. Many of the manuscripts we receive are not of the quality and standard we would like. The quality of manuscript we receive is quiet worrisome because in many ways they reflect a general deterioration in the education section. Good writers are very critical to the development of a questioning society and a knowledge based economy. Unfortunately we are not reproducing writers of good quality as fast as we could. But all of these challenges are not insurmountable.

It?s still early days. The issue of creating a distribution network that covers the whole country is far from complete. We are also still looking for the kind of sponsorship support that will enable us to put on more author tours, writing workshops, writers-in-schools, restocking libraries etc. It is a very slow process encouraging large corporate organizations and individuals to support anything to do with reading and the cultivation of the mind. However, I am overjoyed when I see regular Nigerians reading our books or other books that are not religious or self-help motivational books. When a policeman tells me how grateful he was to us for introducing him to the work of Helon Habila, then I think we are on our way to realizing our objectives. We are not there yet, but we are on our way.

We will gradually expand into West Africa. We will also steadily introduce other, non-Nigerian literary voices into Nigeria. At present, there is little discussion of African elsewhere in Nigeria, with the sense that Nigeria is cut off from its neighbours to the West, East and North. Our aim will be to encourage dialogue, through literature, between Nigeria and the countries beyond its borders. Ultimately, our aim is to grow a sustainable business that gives every child (and adult) in Nigeria the opportunity to develop his love of reading and literature. With the support of well-meaning Nigerians, we will also want to have more regular writing workshops across the country especially in the Northern part where we receive little or no manuscripts. We want to publish a variety of books that reflect the diversity, richness and complexity of Nigerian cultures in the present and in the past in all its variegated beauty and ugliness.

Nigerian writing is going through a renaissance at present, driven by a new crop of writers in the diaspora. The Nigerian literary scene within the country itself is not as dynamic or as exciting as it should be. Nigeria is not an easy place to lead the kind of contemplative life a writer or an intellectual requires and therefore, it is not coincident that many of our newly celebrated writers are all based outside the country. This is because there is very little support and appreciation for those who are left behind. It seems to me that we have a habit of celebrating success without necessarily contributing to the conditions that will make that success a reality. We only want to reap the reward and not to contribute to the process. There is little government or corporate support for work or activities that involve the cultivation of the mind or the writerly skill. Nigerian-based authors do not have the benefit of regular writing workshops like their counterparts in the West. This kind of support allows the writer to grow and provide them with the space to perfect their craft. But more worrisome is that a good number of writers don?t read other writers. So you wonder how they expect to perfect their craft. About two years ago, we set up a stand at annual writer?s convention and you will not believe that we sold no more than 20 books. This is a conference for writers. It makes you wonder. So the Nigerian literary scene is not as vibrant as one would wish.

My advice to writers living in Nigeria is to work on technique and style. There are some basic rules of good writing which you can read about online ? start with downloading George Orwell?s classic essay Politics and the English Language (you can find it via Google). Secondly, it is important to realise that good writing always involves good editing. Even famous writers rely on having a good editor, invisibly in the background. You can be sure that if you send your manuscript to Cassava Republic, and we like what we see, we will find a suitable editor for you. Upcoming writers should realise that the editing process can be quite intensive and laborious. It is not uncommon for a manuscript to take a year to edit, and go through ten or more re-writes! The most important advice I will give to any writer that is serious and wants to perfect there craft is to read, read, read other writers. It is no good reading John Grisham if you are aspiring to be a Achebe or Ngugi. Whatever you do, you must look for good writings, read them for pleasure and then read them to study their craft and technique.

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