Hawthornden Foundation and ABC

African Books Collective (ABC) is pleased to announce a new project. It is kindly supported by the Hawthornden Foundation under their rubric of supporting “organizations that serve underserved literary communities, including in parts of the world with weak or non-existent literary infrastructures”.

ABC was established as a collective non-profit organisation by African publishers to make their books available outside the countries of original publication. ABC supplies the books of over 150 publishers from the African continent including literary, academic, and children’s book publishers and titles in multiple languages. The core ethos is supporting African publishers and promoting African publishing and writing. ABC remits 50% of net income from book sales back to African publishers.

ABC’s mission is cultural/developmental, primarily achieved through a publishing and distribution strategy. A viable African publishing house supports African writers and writing. Literature is empowering for personal and cultural development in any society. This is particularly so in societies and/or languages that have suffered the consequences of marginalisation or oppression whether because of colonialism, apartheid, war, displacement, or severe economic disadvantage.

We have a number of areas that we will use the grant to develop:

•         Working with Editora Trinta Zero Nove (a publisher represented by ABC) on the inaugural Mozambican International Book Festival (Festival Internacional do Livro de Moçambique, FILM).
•         Expanding ABC and African (ABC) publishers presence and working with a larger cohort of attending African publishers at the Frankfurt Book Fair. We will similarly participate at the London Book Fair 2024.
•         Supporting ABC staff visits to relevant African cities/countries to work with publishers ‘on the ground’, recruit new publishers and titles to the collective, exchange knowledge and good practice in areas such as editorial, marketing, social media, book production, and e-book distribution. In addition, ABC will host workshops and learning events to exchange knowledge in the interests of strengthening ABC and publishers.
•         Investing in ABC’s websites to further literary and cultural outreach. Grant funds will enable us to expand our publication on readafricanbooks.com.

Please watch this space for further details.

Support from the Hawthornden Foundation for the above projects is fully acknowledged.

A more detailed history is available at: https://www.readafricanbooks.com/publisher-profiles/african-books-collective-timeline/

African Books Collective-Hawthornden Foundation updates

ABC is publishing a series of author interviews under the auspices of the ABC-Pluto Educational Trust-Hawthornden Foundation collaboration. Featuring books from the South African publisher of women’s writing, Modjaji Books, Ashti Juggath and Zaheera Jina Asvat are interviewed by Jatinder Padda about their novel and short story collection, and experiences of publishing. More interviews with ABC authors from West and Central Africa are in preparation.
We have also commissioned a site redesign for readafricanbooks.com thanks to funds received from the Hawthornden Foundation. We plan to publish more on African literature, publishing and the book trade over the coming months on the new site.
ABC is making plans to attend the Nairobi International Book Fair in September and the Frankfurt Book Fair in October thanks to support from the grant.