Following the news that it will cease operations, now is the right time to take a look at Zimbabwe's Weaver Press.
The publishing company started small in 1998 and has remained small ever since, jointly run by two full-time employees: the husband-and-wife team of Murray McCartney and Eileen Staunton. As Weaver Press celebrates its 25th anniversary, McCartney has announced that it will effectively be closing its doors.
advertisement
Continue reading below
For the couple, publishing was a labor of love. Setting up the company's office in the backyard of his home on the outskirts of Harare was a way to keep overhead costs as low as possible. Their great productivity was fueled by their ambition to publish great literature despite adverse economic and political circumstances.
I am researching the history of books and independent publishing culture in Zimbabwe. Its folding is a real loss for the country's creative writers who found a platform in Weaver Press. In Zimbabwe, multinational publishing conglomerates such as Longman and College Press have focused their operations on the lucrative textbook market, while small independent publishers such as Weaver Press have created a new and imaginative market. I was burdened with the burden of publishing such works.
For 25 years, Weaver Press has provided a platform to help establish a new generation of Zimbabwean writers, particularly through short story anthologies. Their activities became central to critical responses to domestic authoritarianism, and many went on to establish international reputations. The Weaver Press continued to build a literary network and readership even in a culture of censorship.
Founding year
Weaver Press was founded almost 20 years after independence and when the wheels were starting to come off the Zanu-PF wagon. In 1998, the relative stability of Robert Mugabe's government was crumbling. Veterans were demanding large payouts that would destroy the region's enviable economy. The book sector slumped, bookstores closed, and paper prices and production rose. Violence was unleashed against Zanu-PF's political opponents, farm invasions began, and the economy collapsed.
The name Weaver Press is inspired by the small native weaver bird known for its intricately woven nest. Our mission is to build a community of writers and readers.
I was the first of many interns to be trained and mentored at Weaver Press. There were no schools or universities in Zimbabwe that offered published research. The only way to learn was on-the-job training. Before the office building was completed, my workplace was on the balcony. It was an ideal place to learn. In small publishers, the division of who does what is less strict. Things need to get done, and sometimes you can get them done if you are the only hand available.
For Stanton in particular, Weaver Press is the culmination of a remarkable publishing career that began in the 1970s at John Calder Publishing in London and has seen him work with writers such as the celebrated Irish writer Samuel Beckett. She returned to Zimbabwe after independence and co-founded Baobab Books with Hugh Lewin, a South African anti-apartheid activist living in exile in Zimbabwe.
Baobab had an incredible list of writers, including Charles Mangosi, Chenjerai Hove, Alexander Kanegoni, Yvonne Vera, Charles Sampindi, Sima Chinodia and Chirikule Chirikure. This generation used their imaginations to record the trauma of the liberation struggles they witnessed and participated in.
However, with the newly launched Weaver Press, Stanton was working with a new generation of artists who emerged at the turn of the millennium, including Brian Chikwawa, Noviolet Bulawayo, Lawrence Hoba, Christopher Mlaradi, Valerie Tagwila, and Tendai Fuchu. I worked with writers. Their work provides a vivid snapshot of Mugabe's authoritarian state, and he later became an award-winning and influential writer.
short story
The Weaver Press had a major influence on the contours of Zimbabwean fiction, especially through short stories. They have published over a dozen short story anthologies featuring over 50 authors. Zimbabwe did not have a culture of literary magazines, so by anthologizing writers, Weaver Press took on the midwifery role that publications play in discovering new talent, while encouraging older writers to continue writing. did.
They explained:
We are motivated by the idea that fiction is a valuable form of truth-telling that allows for many perspectives and shades of perspective.
advertisement
Continue reading below
dedication
In a country with a hyperinflationary economy and a weak book-buying culture, Weaver Press has always functioned more as a nonprofit than a commercial publisher. They offset publishing costs through freelance editing and typesetting. A commitment to literary excellence drove their work.
In its early stages, the Weaver Press fiction program was developed with a grant from the Dutch non-governmental organization Hivos. Although the Weaver Press developed an impressive catalog of British novels, it did not dabble in African-language publishing or other volatile genres such as poetry.
Small newspapers do not have a good reputation with the government, which considers them to be “hard-core Rhodesians'' and to have a “hidden purpose of mass-producing books to de-campaign'' the Mugabe regime. He accused them of being “subversive agents.'' However, the Weaver Press made a vigorous contribution to Zimbabwe's literary culture, despite censorship and threats of violence against writers.
Lessons for the future
Weaver Press is Zimbabwe's best-known independent printing company and its closure marks the end of an era. A while ago, another small printing company, amaBooks, also closed its doors. Zimbabwe's fortunes, once Africa's publishing powerhouse, have declined significantly in recent years.
But in some ways, this may be the perfect time for a new publishing model to emerge in Zimbabwe. In the digital age, books are no longer the center of publishing. Particularly in a market like Zimbabwe, where the population is very young, experimenting with different media such as the internet, podcasts and television is essential. The art of reading has changed.
But literary culture, or reading and writing, is an important part of how societies understand, reproduce, and transform themselves. In this regard, Weaver Press has more than fulfilled its role.
Tinashe Mushakavanv I am a junior research fellow at the University of Oxford.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.