By Farayi Mungoshi

OUR topic this week The Missing Link (and the way forward) in the Publishing, Editing and Design of Books in Zimbabwe. What is it that the Business of Publishing in Zimbabwe ought to do in order to increase the reading and buying of books? was discussed at the recently held Zimbabwe International Book Fair Writer’s Workshop.
Presenting was Phillip Mudzimba from College Press.
To those who still remember, Mudzimba is the same gentleman who also spoke on behalf of publishers at last year’s ZIBF Writers’ Workshop.
I must hand it to Mudzimba for braving a group of angry writers who feel ill-treated and short-changed by publishers.
In his presentation, he referred to the need for a writer-publisher relationship which calls for the writer to allow the publisher to be part of a product (book/work in progress) right from the very beginning.
This, he said, would give the publisher a chance and opportunity to assist the writer in writing a book that is presentable and marketable.
At some point, to emphasise his view, Mudzimba took a swipe at self-publishers, referring to the shoddiness of work done on some self-published books; how they are not marketable because of the many mistakes in the books and the presentation.
As I sat there listening to this man whom I had already (from my own bias) decided to dismiss right from the start due to his job description, I could not help but agree with some of the points he was raising.
But the more I pondered, the more I found myself drifting out of the workshop into a past not too distant from here – a time when stocked libraries could be found throughout Zimbabwe, and ‘Marechera Mania’ swept the country like a veld fire.
I remembered curling up on the furry carpet at the Marondera City Library after a reading of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs by the librarian in 1987 when I was doing Grade Five at Godfrey Huggins Primary School.
It was all so lovely then, almost surreal, but it was not reality even though it seemed like it was.
The economy was still not ours then – and I knew more about Rapunzel, Goldilocks and Cinderella than Karikoga Gumi reMiseve and for as long as we were okay living in this bubble, Europe and America were happy.
We were supposed to just enjoy these things all around us – the imaginary world – and not to question ownership.
The transition, we as a country, went through later – yes, that land issue, the transfer of it; sanctions, the exodus of some of the whites out of Zimbabwe and the closure of most minority-run companies that eventually led to the death of most international business relationships between local companies that were then white-owned and international companies actually woke us up to reality and the true nature of things in as far as white supremacists’ relationship with Africa is concerned.
For me to explain this in a much clearer way, allow me to take you back a few weeks to an article in which I wrote: “Despite corruption in governments across Africa, Africa was destined to have economic challenges for as long as whites were/are not involved in its governance.”
It is important for us to understand there was once a system in place.
And in that system, Zimbabwe and the UK were one, bound under the Commonwealth States.
While books were well-distributed across the nation, they were also distributed internationally, well-networked by whites who used to run most of the publishing houses in Zimbabwe.
The closing down of companies like Longman, Baobab Books and our exit from the Commonwealth, wherein Zimbabwe was well-known for scooping writers’ awards through writers like Shimmer Chinodya and Dr Charles Mungoshi, marked the beginning of our present woes.
Writers can still market their books and writings.
We have the likes of Albert Nyathi, Chirikure Chirikure and Memory Chirere who are still travelling, but the biggest question is: Are publishers still as involved as they were when whites ran the system?
Should we then blame it on the departure of whites or the closure of white-owned companies in Zimbabwe and say our suffering in the book industry is because they left?
Should we look down upon ourselves in self-pity as if we don’t have pens with ink, laptops or tablets to write on or minds to create a system that still allows us to market our own books locally and internationally?
How come Nyathi is still travelling?
Are white publishers and distributors the ‘missing link’ we need to increase the reading and buying of books because theirs was a system linked to their cousins in Europe and America?
We also have black cousins across the ocean – they want to learn our culture, having been slaves for over 400 years – then what is wrong with establishing our own system?
The answer does not lie with their (whites) return to the industry.
It lies with each individual who decides to take pen to paper.
African literature is a genre on its own, still found in America, Europe and everywhere else in the world.
People are still longing to hear our story and learn our culture.
You can’t sell American culture to America.
You sell them African culture, maybe then they can understand why Africa has a problem with endorsing gay marriages, among other things.