Who Controls Book Publishing in Anglophone Middle Africa?

Abstract

Book publishing in anglophone middle Africa must be interpreted against a background of illiteracy, an emphasis on achievement reading, and other social and infrastructural elements. International market forces acting through metropolitan publishers determine general and nonfiction publishing, whereas the major market governing African creative writing is found in African schools and universities. The actions of British publishing multinationals only diverge slightly from the pattern of multinational action in less developed countries. Educational publishing is dominated by these multinationals who, through localization and because of the barriers to African educational publishing, have generally retained their position. State publishing, retarded by problems, has not yet proved very successful. Only limited government action has been taken to adjust the balance in favor of indigenous publishing because a symbiotic relationship exists between the educational system, multinational publishers, bureaucrats and transnationalism.