HE first whiff 
that there could be problems 
came days before 
the opening of the book 
fair. It even preceded the 
usual joining events to the 
fair: workshops, conferences, 
the most anticipated 
being the indaba 
(Shona language term for 
'in gathering'). 
Trish Mbanga, Executive 
Director of ZIBF had just negotiated 
her sports combi car out from 
the expansive gates of the Zimbabwe 
Broadcasting Corporation that 
chilly Wednesday morning where 
the writer had been a guest on AM 
Zimbabwe, ZBC's live breakfast 
telecast when she asked, 
'Have you seen the Herald 
this morning?' 
'No1, I replied, but actually 
should have said, 'couldn't have1, 
since the journey to that edge of 
Harare's suburbia started so early 
my eyes had scarcely opened from 
sleep. 
'There's a reportthatgovernment 
has barred the galzs from 
the fair!' 
I learnt also that it was a 
carry-over from the previous year 
when the first version of government 
edict forbidding the Book 
Fair Trust from allocating stands at 
the fair to the association of Gays 
and Lesbians was drafted, rousing 
much dust in its wake. 
And true enough, it did not 
take long, later that morning, as I 
walked the foyers of the central 
business district, for my eyes to 
threats of open disruptions at 
the book fair's ceremonies 
from the galz community on 
the one hand, and 
government's promise to meet 
force with force if it was dared 
on the other. 
catch the offending Herald 
report, layed out on the street1 s 
culverts. The screaming headline 
said and sealed it all: 
Galzs had been banned from 
the fair, newspaper pages the 
days following awash with 
African Quurter/y 
an the Arts 
Vol. II NO i
The executive director's 
squint into the misty morning 
betrayed not a mere hint of 
worry but a foreboding that I 
saw, threatened a shadowy 
cloud over all the effort, the 
plans and expectations for a 
most successful outing of the 
ZIBF in all its six years of 
evolution. 
The bustle of preparations 
was felt all through the 
city; we sped past posters 
advertising the event, strapped 
to the girth of trees with twines. 
Talks among townsfolk in shops 
and pubs also easily veered 
off to the fair, often revealing 
each discussant's private plan 
towards the fair: the common 
refrain became, 'see you at 
the fair'. Which began to 
enlighten the complete visitor 
about this manner of cultural 
landscape: traditional lines of 
demarcation between the elite 
and regular townsfolk existing 
elsewhere blurred, especially 
as it concerned this international 
event — what only 
waited to be verified was 
whether public interest was 
aroused because of its obvious 
implications for the national 
pride or it was the sheer 
interest in books and culture 
which the book propagated. 
The eventual teeming 
crowds at the fair seemed to 
settle all that: even children 
scampered from stall to stall 
on their own leafing through 
promotional manuals from 
publishers and occasionally 
making modest purchases. 
Part of the bustle occured 
at the actual site of the event, 
in the new stone-walled and 
thatch-topped structure built 
into the precincts of the Harare 
Sculpture Park to join three 
scores of less permanent fair 
pavilions, but more appropriately, 
expansive thatch huts 
which did not just feature in 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol.1/ NO 4 
the past years but have gone 
so far as to grant the ZIBF its 
very ornate, exotic character, 
at legst from the point of view 
of the non-African spectator. 
The structure is the new secretariat 
of the book fair administration. 
Construction work 
and wood-panel finishings 
were only being completed 
the week previous and movements 
of man and goods into 
it were at its height. Trish transformed 
into her spritely bustling 
self the moment our 
exchanges turned to that subject. 
And for good reason 
too, for she was proud to 
reveal to me that she was the 
very unlicensed architect of 
Zimbabwe! She had thought 
up and worked the house into 
shape with the assistance of 
local craftsmen and artisans. 
'I drove the town plan 
ning people mad be 
lieve me....' 
she started to say. 
'They demanded that I 
produce a copy of the 
plan but couldn't 
believe I had no plan at 
all!1 
By this time, we had 
arrived in the park and begun 
to shuffle between the yet 
empty stalls and pavilions as 
we made our entry towards 
the new building. 
I would be a proud artist 
myself, in her shoes, I 
thought, as we contemplated 
the secretariat; it seemed quite 
a natural conclusion for me 
therefore to have her photographed 
against a backdrop 
of the thatched house! 
Butthe local thatch makers 
found employment in other 
places around the city—their 
craft was to be encountered 
in exclusive cottages and resort 
centres for tourists. Hotels 
introduced decors of 
thatchwork into bars and restaurants, 
which I adjudged incongruous 
in some cases, 
amidst enormous concrete 
bulwarks. Some were outright 
exaggerations designed to 
satiate the conceptions of European 
tourists about Africa. 
Walls displayed assortments 
of hides from tigers and zebras 
along with multitudes of 
hunters' staves and knives. Not 
untypically, Harare's 'African' 
eateries kept reserves of 'native' 
dancers and stunt-makers 
who emerged in-between 
meals to render performances 
which were overtly mendacious 
- they were more exotic 
to their African audiences than 
to guests from elsewhere. 
Which is not to say that they 
did not fulfill their functions, 
for the restaurateurs made brisk 
sales on food items which 
atimes included wierd if delectable 
menus of tongues of 
snakes and crocodiles' flesh! 
The pattern of Zimbabwean 
thatch however shares 
much similarity with West African 
thatch: the same roof slope 
and arch shape, almost rotund, 
except that the former 
consisted of thicker and firmer 
material and so were more 
permanent and a lot more 
aesthetically pleasing. 
Whereas thatchtops, which 
are still a ubiquitous feature in 
sahelian Northern Nigeria, 
and in fact all of sahelian 
West Africa, have shorter 
livespans and in most cases 
have to be replaced every two 
years, due also perhaps to the 
fact that West African rains 
can be more stormy, capable 
of beating roofs to shreds from 
severe drops. And as with traditional 
modes of building, so 
with the music and textiles. 
Xylophone orchestras parading 
large numbers of instrumentalists 
graced the fair opening 
ceremonies and the exhibitions, 
some comprising of 
solely women instrumentalists. 
The instrument was the same 
as those known to other parts 
of the continent except that I 
thought the Zimbabwean orchestral 
sound was more exquisite 
and their singers more 
sonorous. Much as the same 
observation of close similarity 
may be made of the local 
textile prints, known in Nigeria 
as 'ankara', they were, in 
the words of a chance acquaintance, 
junior cousins of 
West African prints, boasting 
of much less splash of colour 
and flamboyance. 
'West Africa is the 
mother of Africa....' I heard 
him say. 
We have no sculpture, 
I mean real sculpture, the great 
African crafts that belong 
to West Africa. We don't 
have the paintings either, only 
music. Culturally West Africa 
is the mother of Africa.' 
Notwithstanding, the 
book fair from the first day 
made a good show of the 
region's rich cultural resources, 
sifting, selecting, exhibiting 
the very best with 
good taste. For in addition to 
flooding the fair grounds with 
hordes of musical and dance 
troupes which included a marvelous 
children's dance 
group, it also ensured that 
the festival's main souvenir, 
the book fair's folder, was 
wholly encased with the local 
coloured textile prints. 
Even so did associations of 
printers and graphic artists 
feature prominently at the 
pavilions side by side book 
binders and pre-press companies 
(all unquestionable 
allies of the book traders). 
The actual book fair, 
that is, outside the usual conferences, 
workshops and 
seminars of writers, publish-
ers and book councils, consisted 
of two parts, the traders' 
days and the public days. And 
the term 'trader' included librarians 
and representatives 
of public institutions who arrived 
to represent the book 
interests of their organisations 
with selective eyes. Even so, it 
was intended primarily to help 
publishers interract, collaborate 
and compare notes before 
the public was allowed to 
swamp the site. The objective 
of most publishers, especially 
the non-Southern Africans, was 
more to exhibit than to sell, 
and it was not difficult to see 
why. 
First, Zimbabwe had 
stringent tax policies on importation 
that extended to 
books, which many first-timers 
found to be strange. It seemed 
such a contradition that 
Africa's most famous book 
promoter should also be the 
one to impose duties on books. 
A manager at the fair's permanent 
bookshop assured me that 
the book fair has had to pay 
duties on imported promotional 
manuals. And so, it 
turned out not to be an extraordinary 
affair for the copies of 
Glendora Review making their 
first entry into Zimbabwe to be 
detained by Zimbabwean cus- 
Above: Trish Mbanga Below: Hans M. Zell 
rights on his books. publishers in my observation 
was the fact that they were 
able to interract, particularly 
on book production. Since the 
economic decline of the Seventies 
and Eighties in many 
African countries and the widespread 
embrace of structural 
adjustment programmes which 
placed premium on local production, 
foreign importation 
of goods diminished in quantity 
(including books authored 
by African nationals) and actoms! 
That is, until the book 
fair's official intervention. Publishers 
who knew about the 
situation from past experience 
had the good sense to arrive 
with a few sample copies of 
their publications 'for exhibition 
only' and so, were hardly 
able to honour the usual legitimate 
demands for gratis copies. 
Which may have been 
why the man who to me was 
ZIBF's most enthusiastic exhibitor 
in '96, Chief Joop Berkout 
of Nigeria, slapped the backs 
of a few friends who visited his 
stand during the trader's days 
and said his main task in 
Harare was to sell foreign 
companied by the massive devaluation 
of the national currencies, 
where such goods 
were available they shot astronomically 
above the purchasing 
capabilities of the people. 
African publishers have had 
to print locally with less sophisticated 
equipment and less 
competent manpower, the result 
being the drastic ebb in 
the quality of African publishing 
products. So that the challenge 
before African publish- 
And if it was a job importing 
books to Zimbabwe, it 
was a harder job repatriating 
funds from it, according to a 
Namibian participant. Such 
that, even when sales were 
recorded, the proceeds were 
more wisely lavished-on personal 
acquisitions from 
Harare's shops which fortunately 
were very well stocked.. 
The greatest benefit to African 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol.1/ NO 4
ers in the Nineties has been to 
achieve high-quality local book 
production aspiring to international 
standards with 
cheaper materials and not-sosophisticated 
equipment. A 
brief tour round the stalls at the 
fair confirms that African publishers 
are facing up to the task 
with different degrees of success. 
An international fair helps 
publishers to spy on whole 
collections by counterparts 
from other nations and hopefully 
to compare notes on operational 
strategies. Some 
West and East African publishers 
may be overheard exclaiming 
about the high production 
standards of some titles 
given the same or even confronted 
by worse, economic 
and infrastructural problems. 
For Southern African states, 
the trend now is to go South, to 
the big neighbour, the Republic 
of South Africa, where printing 
is reportedly cheaper, manpower 
more efficient and the 
latest, state-of-the-art equipment 
more abundant. In 
Harare at least, local competitors 
are also responding, rising 
to the occasion to stem the 
tides of migrations to the South 
by providing comparable services 
through harder work and 
more enhanced creativity. 
World Capital 
And Harare, without 
any doubt, became the capital 
of the world. If for the only 
reason that for that one month 
at least the whole world converged 
at her doorstep. ZIBF 
became, to adapt a line from 
Nigerian poetOdia Ofeimun, 
the huge carcase in the marketplace 
pulling giant vultures 
to itself. The list would be endless. 
But certainly the town of 
Oxford in the UK emptied itself 
completely of all its publishers 
and editors. The more 
memorable including the energetic 
veteran, Hans Zell, 
moving spirit behind the once 
African Quarterly 
OH the Arts 
Vol. 11 Nil 4 
famous but now deceased Ife 
Book Fair, Mary Jay of the 
African Books Collective 
(ABC), Katherine Salahi incharge 
of Bellagio administration 
in Oxford (wife of renowned 
artist Ibrahim El 
Salahi) accompanied by 
niece, Becky Fishman, an 
Oxford linguistics graduate 
and intending Oxford editorpublisher. 
Then of course 
Natalie Warren-Green, overseas 
publisher of Heinemann 
Group and Terence Cross, 
Heinemann publishing consultant 
for Africa complimented 
by a whole contingent of the 
Heinemanns. London officials 
he greatest 
benefit to African 
publishers 
in my observation 
was the 
fact that they 
were able to 
interract, 
parti-c u Luly 
on book 
production. 
like Margaret Ling, managing 
director of ZIBF UK, Carol 
Priestley of the Southern African 
Book Development and 
Education Trust and Paul 
Westlake, Hon. Treasurer, International 
African Institute 
all seemed to me to be operating 
more from the wings, but 
were indeed active arranging 
for the diverse consortia and 
workshops that ran in part 
prior to the fair, some right 
into the fair. Priestley for example 
is also responsible for 
coordinating the African Periodicals 
Exhibit (APEX) which 
promotes African serial publications 
and journals worldwide.- 
From the innumerable 
horde of others were Verlag 
Holger Ehling a long lost' 
friend, editor of Frankfurtbased 
African literature journal, 
Mdtatu and press officer 
with the Frankfurt book fair; 
Peter Ripken, Secretary-General 
of the society for the promotion 
of African, Asian and 
Latin American literatures doubling 
as representative of the 
Henrich Boll Foundation; Tade 
Akin Aina of CODESRIA, 
Dakar, Senegal; Atukwei Okai 
the Ghanaian poet and Woeli 
Dekutsey a ZIBF trustee. At a 
seperate event holding in the 
town, a Commonwealth diplomatic 
briefing, the world also 
compassed me about, after I 
had been securely roped in by 
my illustrious 'agent' in Harare, 
the indefatigable Chief Joop 
Berkout. Fortunately some of 
the presences would be 
recogniseable too: Emeka 
Anyaoku of Nigerian origins 
and Secretary-General of the 
Commonwealth, Tayo Fasoyin 
formerly University of Lagos 
professor of international relations 
currently serving as International 
Labour 
Organisation's representative 
in Zimbabwe. 
It was the indaba however 
that contained the greatest 
horde of dignitaries where 
Nigerian writer, KoleOmotoso 
delivered a keynote address 
around the 'National book 
policy, the literate environment 
and its relationship to national 
development.' It was not uncommon 
to start a spirited conversation 
with a new acquaintance 
only to discover in the 
end that he was some cabinet 
minister in Sierra Leone or Zimbabwe. 
What was more, it 
was here that my 'agent' demanded 
that I lodge a complaint 
about the momentary 
detention of the GR copies at 
Harare Airport with the very 
person of the Zimbabwean 
minister of education! 
African Journal 
Editors 
One of the lofty ideas 
that typified the sixth ZIBF was 
the African journal editors' 
workshop, hatched by the International 
African Institute 
(IAI). Looking back now, I can 
testify that the five-day meeting 
achieved more than its 
organisers originally intended, 
which was to enhance what 
was described as 'good practise 
in journal publishing.1 Even 
so, Hans Zell, the coordinator 
of the workshop would in the 
course of the conference offer 
a more explicit term for the 
motivating idea, which was, 
'good housekeeping in journal 
publishing.' Obviously the 
workshop sprang out of a belief 
that journals have failed 
most times in Africa not for 
want of good editorial imput 
but more for poor management 
- subscription management 
more directly but also, 
poor marketing and promotions 
and inefficient finance 
and business plan. 
Hans Zell had prior to 
the workshop prepared a comprehensive 
handbook on the 
subject, commissioned by the 
IAI, with which participants 
were served in loose leaf 
format before their arrival in 
Harare, so that they would 
have been thoroughly acquainted 
with the material. This 
then became the working script 
on which discussions were 
builtand practical experiences 
of participating editors compared 
with those described in 
the book 
The Harare workshop 
was to be the second, immediately 
succeeding a similar 
workshop for editors and publishers 
of scientific journals in
Eastern Africa held in Addis 
Ababa. Harare than concentrated 
on editors and publishers 
of social science and cultural 
and literary journals in 
Southern Africa. But not without 
one exception at least. 
And that is a cultural-literary 
journal based in Western Africa 
represented by the present 
writer.
One of the many marks 
of the recognition of the value 
of the gathering was the involvement 
of some editors who 
though were not officially invited, 
came along all the same 
as observers, word about the 
meeting having leaked out to 
them. They include Micheal 
Cross, editor of the University 
of Witwatersrand publication, 
Perspectives in Education 
(South Africa) and Elizabeth 
Larson who coordinates Consortium 
for African Scholarly 
Publishing, Nairobi, Kenya, 
among others from Tanzania 
and Zambia. 
The workshop exposed 
the editors to common journal 
killers which are often very 
dangerous for the very reason 
that they are prone to being 
taken for granted. Even minuscule 
factors like the way the 
name of a journal reads on 
the cover, the publication's size 
and format also, (in addition 
to consistency of format) which 
many were surprised to learn 
help librarians to determine 
what publications to select for 
subscription. The booby-traps 
in the roadways to a successful 
publication of journals (especially 
in Africa) were so 
varied and could never have 
come naturally to anyone without 
the practical, long-standing 
experience of the coordinator, 
Hans Zell and his humorous 
compliment, Roger 
Stringer who besides being 
workshop co-instructor, also 
contributes a chapter in the 
Harare high street 
handbook oh 'Desktop Publishing 
for Beginners'. Stringer 
would also, towards the end, 
give a demonstration on the 
internet, which was an extension 
of a workshop session 
that addressed 'electronic 
document delivery and electronic 
publishing - implications 
and repercussions for African 
journal publishers.' 
The programme was as 
all-encompassing as it was 
vigorous, leading most editors 
convinced that it should have 
extended over several more 
days. The needle-eye handbook 
detail pierced such other 
vital subjects as, a publishing 
viability checklist, editorial and 
style, production (we later had 
an outdoor session in a prepress 
company midtown), indexing 
and abstracting services 
and possibilities for nonsubscription 
revenue. It was 
amazing how much Hans and 
Roger were prepared to give 
away considering that they - 
Hans in particular - are themselves 
practitioners in the same 
field yet doling out so freely 
what we thought were hardearned, 
essential trade secrets. 
Beyond the immediate 
gain of injecting life-support 
insight into the operations of 
journal publishing was the gain 
of gathering the editors in one 
venue and thus making them 
instant close acquaintances 
and hopeful future collaborators. 
They include L. O. Aina, 
editor African Journal of Library, 
Archives and Information 
Science, Gaborone, 
Botswana; Janet Nyeko of 
Review of Southern African 
Studies, Lesotho; Steve 
Chimombo of Wasi, Malawi; 
Maila Nghidinwa, Sister 
Namibia, Windhoek, 
Namibia; Walter Chaleka, 
Staffrider, Pretoria, South Africa; 
Kwame Ninsin, African 
Journal of Political Science, 
Harare; Lesley Humphrey, 
African Publishing Review, 
Harare; Sioux Cumming, Geographyjournal 
of Zimbabwe, 
Harare; Ropafadzo Benjamin, 
Journal of Social Development 
in Africa, Harare; Caroline 
Boswell, Legal Forum, Harare; 
Godfrey Moyo, Township Theatre 
News, Bulawayo; Sam 
Matsangaise, Zambezia, 
Harare and Carol Pearce of 
The Zimbawean Review, 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol. II NO 4 
Harare. One of the testimonies 
to which was a downtown 
Harare exploration with 
Carol Pearce and Godfrey 
Moyo (Carol's brilliant idea) 
to MBARI, a high-density 
Harare suburb, days after the 
workshops and book fair had 
dispersed, a tour which concluded 
with a rice-filled stopover 
in one of Harare's nontouristic 
restaurants! 
York Road, Greendale 
The fair wound up on a 
most enthusiastic note, despite 
the initial galz problem. I had 
paused somewhere to wonder 
if it was not a conundrum 
afterall, carefully scripted, I 
imagined, behind one of the 
desks in the multiplied highrise 
government ministry buildings 
in the city. Or maybe it 
was the reporter reading too 
much in. But the affair certainly 
served the event well in 
the end, both locally and 
abroad, bestowing it with a 
new topicality. How else could 
it be? The dramatis personae 
being the government and a 
local association. What ordinarily 
would have been an 
II
world. I thought if the association 
had had no problems getting 
registered in Zimbabwe 
and as such was recognised 
as a legal entity, and that long 
before the fair, why was the 
internal, national affair was 
thus performed as a dramatic 
opening glee before a normally 
fussless meeting of business 
and scholarly minded individuals 
from around the 
WE W I L L BE THERE 
S o 0 d v e r t i s e n o w a n d S u b s c r i b e t o a r a p i d l y e x p a n d i n g 
i n t e r n a t i o n a l o u t r e a c h . 
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government now choosing the 
lawns of the book fair gardens 
to lock shoulders with it, a 
venue where it knew they 
would be spied upon by the 
whole world? 
Other subtle wars were 
fought during the Zimfair however 
but that did not receive the 
same amount of publicity. Even 
as the exhibitors closed shop 
towards the end, some could 
be seen scratching off certain 
little stickers expressing yet 
another form of protest message. 
They were to be found 
everywhere, their message direct 
and brief: DON'T TAX 
BOOKS. A campaign Ifigured 
was engineered by fellow-sufferers 
at the airport customs 
desk. 
For most participants the 
concluding hours were spent in 
drinks-saturated festivity. They 
dissolved into small groups and 
scattered all over: hotel lobbies, 
Harare gardens and the 
book fair secretariat. For the 
Nigerian 'contingent' it meant 
a motor-ride down to the home 
of the Mettedens, the Nigerian 
High Commissioner and his 
wife, on invitation. There on 
York Road we were awaited 
by a robust dinner of sorely 
missed Nigerian delicacies, led 
by the chief guest himself, Joop 
Berkout. But not before 'fluidy' 
conversation sessions shared 
joyously bythe zestful host and 
hostess with the diners - Vincent 
Chukwuemeka Ike the novelist 
and prominent indaba figure, 
publishers Lawal Solarin 
(Literamed, Lagos), Berkout 
(Spectrum, Ibadan) and Victor 
Nwankwo (New Dimension, 
Enugu). Thecompanyalso consisted 
of Lagos University 
bookshop manageress Mrs. 
Orimolade and daughter, two 
Nigerian lecturers at the University 
of Zimbabwe, Tayo 
Fasoyin of the ILO and a Nigerian 
diplomatic staff. Even there 
out in Greendale, we heard 
echoes from the Atlanta Olympics. 
It was expctly an hour to 
the historic last-leg soccer encounter 
between Nigeria and 
Argentina. GR