Resume the broken dialogue with the gods of your fathers

WHAT is an imprint and why is it important? Pull any book off the shelf and on the back, usually at the bottom, you'll see a business name. Often that name has “Books" or “Press" at the end, and it may be accompanied by a small logo. That name is the imprint, the book industry term for the brand under which the book is published. Traditional publishers each have multiple imprints and assign a book an imprint based on content and market potential. It's a guide to bookstores.

In a book I read recently, Choice by Neel Mukherjee, the main character is an editor at a publishing house in England. He reflects on categorisation:

Brown and black writers are readily coralled into the pen marked “Colonialism" from where they can shout and bleat but they are safely and effectively contained there, a demarcated space that will not contaminate any place else so that they can be easily ignored and everyone else can carry on with business as usual. For the British to pay attention to colonialism, white writers needed to tackle the subject.

It's extremely cynical and we hope it's not entirely true.

There is a new kid on the block: the imprint Apollo Africa — a collaboration between Black Star Books and Head of Zeus, part of Bloomsbury Publishing. It republishes books by authors from Africa.

The original Heinemann African Writers Series was launched by Heinemann in 1962 with Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, among others.

Apollo Africa has taken over to ensure that important writers from the continent remain in print. The books are published uniformly and recognisably with African-type designs on the cover.

The following books of this imprint have already landed on my desk:

Homecoming by Ngūgī wa Thiong'o. This 86-year-old Kenyan writer and academic is considered East Africa's leading author. He began writing in English and switched to Gikuyu. His work includes novels, dramas, short stories and essays.

With his characteristic passion and intelligence, this collection of essays deals with subjects such as oppression, consumerism and independence. It provides an overview of Africa's culture and society.

What the African novelist has attempted to do is restore the African character to his history. The African novelist has turned his back on the Christian god and resumed the broken dialogue with the gods of his people. He has given back to the African character the will to act and change the scheme of things.

The Interpreters by Wole Soyinka. Nobel laureate Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde “Wole" Soyinka is a Nigerian playwright, novelist, poet and essayist who writes in English.

This is his debut novel and tells the story of a group of friends confronted with political corruption and post-independence cultural insecurity in Nigeria. Their world is vividly painted in prose that fluctuates between satire and the tragic.

Wings of Dust by Jamal Mahjoub. Mahjoub is a writer of British and Sudanese descent. He writes in English and has published eight novels under his own name, as well as a travelogue, A Line in the River: Khartoum, City of Memory. In 2012, Mahjoub began writing a series of crime fiction novels under the pseudonym Parker Bilal.

This is a fictionalised autobiography. Mahjoub explores the way in which the first generation of northern Sudanese took on the mammoth task of building a new, independent nation.

His style is characterised by dry humour and an eye for detail.

No Sweetness Here by Ama Ata Aidoo. Aidoo was a Ghanaian writer, poet, playwright, politician and academic. She was secretary of education in Ghana from 1982 to 1983. Her first play, The Dilemma of a Ghost, was published in 1965, making Aidoo the first published female African playwright. She was one of the continent's foremost feminist and postcolonial writers.

This novel also tackles the challenges of postcolonial Ghana with topics ranging from the politics of wigs to the joys of motherhood. Her style is colourful and vibrant.

We need to read them, the giants of the continent on which we find ourselves. We need to hear their stories to understand ourselves and our society.

♦ VWB ♦

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