Sub-Saharan Africa Literature and Publishing Sector Report
As we look to build on our programmes with the literature and publishing sectors in Sub-Saharan Africa, the British Council has commissioned a scoping report into the trade publishing and literature sectors across nine countries in which it operates: Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
The purpose of the report is to gather up-to-date information on local contexts, trends and challenges in publishing and contemporary writing across the nine countries.
With numerous changes and innovations in the publishing and literature sectors in recent years, many as a result of the pandemic, the report aims to provide an overview of the sectors in Sub-Saharan Africa to inform the British Council’s future work in Literature. The insight gathered in the report will also be shared with sector stakeholders, to inform practice, policy, and potential collaborations.
The scoping report focusses on publishers, writers and literature organisations working across different African languages. It examines the publishing sector, including traditional book publishing, online publishing and writing magazines, self-publishing, audio and e-books and other innovative forms of publishing. The report also reflects on the broader literature sector in each country, including, but not limited to festivals, writers, collectives, live literature, writer development, translation and other forms which are relevant in the local context.
Download the report
Click on the following link to download the Sub-Saharan Africa Literature and Publishing Sector Report.
About the author
Anietie Isong is researcher and creative writer. He competed his PhD in New Media and Writing at De Montfort’s University’s Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility, a centre that undertakes research on the actual and potential impacts of computing and related technologies on society and its citizens. Isong’s thesis explored the influence of new media technologies on African literature. His debut novel, Radio Sunrise, won the Mckitterick Prize, and was listed for other prizes including the 9mobile Prize for Literature. The book has also been adapted into a movie. Isong’s second novel, News at Noon, was published in the UK, in 2022. His collection of short stories, Someone Like Me, won the inaugural Headlight Review Chapbook Prize for Prose Fiction. His essay is included in the anthology, Of This Our Country (published by Borough Press), a collection of essays by acclaimed Nigerian writers on the home, identity and culture they know.
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