Abstract
AbstractThis article explores the history of two Tanzanian publishing houses and the remarkable life and career of Walter Bgoya, former general manager of Tanzania Publishing House (1972–90) and managing director of Mkuki na Nyota, which he founded in 1991. Using the lens of microhistory, and drawing from extensive interviews with Bgoya and conversations with two colleagues and three authors, the article first chronicles his early life and ideological formation and what influenced his career in book publishing. It then examines the key achievements and challenges faced by these publishing houses in different times of austerity (e.g. Structural Adjustment Programmes, foreign investment with conditionalities, declining state support and high printing costs), along with the complex ways in which Bgoya has navigated the shifting, often uncertain, political, financial and legislative landscapes, while retaining his intellectual freedom and core Pan-Africanist beliefs. Constraints have not hampered Bgoya's pursuit of ambitious projects or his commitment to publishing relevant and progressive books, either written by African authors or on African matters. I suggest that reducing the scale and identifying how specific conditions of austerity have affected the choices made by a publisher over time can yield insights into the ways in which cultural institutions have contributed to knowledge production and dissemination in postcolonial Africa.
Highlights
Maria SurianoThis article explores book publishing in Tanzania through the history of two pioneering publishing houses – and the charismatic man behind them
Additional income came from publications for local independent research institutions, freelance editing, commissioned writing, consultancies on media and book publishing, allowances from the membership of various boards of directors, both during the latter part of Mwinyi’s presidential mandate and after Mkapa’s 1995 election, and participation in the Nyerere negotiating team (1995–99) during the Burundi Peace Initiative
The early 2000s presented a new challenge: the demise of donors’ support stemming from the adoption of the United Nations Millennium Declaration, which listed universal access to primary education among its eight development goals, but excluded the publishing sector and did not cater for higher education and teacher training. These so-called poverty reduction strategies led to the rapid decline of the Zimbabwe International Book Fair and other key platforms for marketing books and networking
Summary
This article explores book publishing in Tanzania through the history of two pioneering publishing houses – and the charismatic man behind them. Reducing the scale and considering apparently insignificant facts and individuals’ idiosyncratic social relations allows us to grasp continuities and clues that can generate – not automatically, and not by analogy, but by anomaly, what Edoardo Grendi once called ‘the exceptional normal’ – an appreciation of broader historical phenomena (Levi 1990; Ginzburg 1994; Grendi 1994; Peltonen 2001).2 With this theoretical backdrop in place, I aim to demonstrate how concrete and intimate details about two publishing houses and the man behind them – i.e. the ‘micro’ dimensions (publishing model, individual choices, the social relations around them, entities constraining publishing) – are connected to the ‘macro’ (national and global events). Bgoya’s trajectory, vision and expertise are unique, his acts of remediation expose the worldview and contribution of a generation deeply invested in intellectual freedom and progressive cultural production and dissemination
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