Cameroon’s ace publisher and literary icon, Mwalimu George Ngwane, who has just published a new book, has called on academics to help promote a book culture aimed at improving reading, publishing and library development skills in the country’s higher education system. This was necessary, he said, for quality education and training.
Speaking at the launch of the new book, titled Protecting Minority Language Rights, in Buea earlier in May, the publisher said the higher education system in Africa should promote a culture of institutional libraries connected to the community, making these libraries functional and relevant to their immediate environments.
Academics, he said, had to make libraries more useful by publishing books that were of interest to users. Ngwane (GN), regretted that libraries were more like warehouses than knowledge stores. University dons in Africa should help develop a reading spirit in their students by publishing books so graduates could follow in their footsteps, he urged.
University World News (UWN) met him for an interview on how academics can drive a publishing culture in the university milieu in Africa and help make libraries more relevant to the higher education system on the continent.
UWN: You presided over the recent celebration of World Book Day in Buea. As a publisher, what is the history behind this day and what does it mean to you?
GN: Let me say here that the purpose of a World Book Day is generally to promote reading for pleasure, which is different from reading for examinations.
Generally, World Book Day targets the youth, especially students, because there is the saying, ‘catch them while they are young’. And so at their early formative years, a reading culture among the youths sinks into their psyche and, once this spirit of the written language and literary skills gets seeded in them, it geminates into a bumper harvest of [embracing] a book culture in adulthood.
The guiding principle is that books transform how people see themselves and the world around them. This principle resonates every time we celebrate World Book Day [in April].
Remember, the African is a conversational being; he likes to discuss, to dialogue and the pages of a book often provide engaging platforms between the reader and the writer. So, the major activities carried out in Cameroon and many other countries in Africa to mark the celebration are principally panel discussions by some selected intellectuals and sometimes book exhibitions.
But some other aspects I have witnessed in other countries include regional book fairs, [the] organisation of writers’ forums and writers’ awards, book journey campaigns, reading competitions [and] librarians [who] do open days.
I think each country tries to contextualise its activities. It should be noted that world literature records this day as the date that several prominent authors died, including William Shakespeare, that we all know, and Miguel de Cervantes, a Spanish writer who wrote the famous epic novel called Don Quixote in 1605. I should also add that the day is actually named World Book and Copyright Day.
UWN: How can university lecturers help to develop a reading and book culture in the higher education system in Africa?
GN: As a student in the University of Yaounde in the early ’80s, our lecturers used to give us assignments that required our visiting libraries at the then American Cultural Centre and at the British Council, both in Yaounde.
So we did not depend entirely on lecture notes but were moulded early enough to know how to source information through books in the library. One major piece of evidence to show that we had been reading books for the assignment was the bibliography required.
I am sure this practice continues in some higher institutes today. A reading culture is so vital in the life of any student, but sometimes the lecturers need to push the students to recognise this fact.
Lecturers can establish book discussions within their classes or book clubs outside their lecture halls. In either case, this is an opportunity for students to discuss with their peers books they have read. Their motivational presentations would act as a recommendation that triggers curiosity from others to also read the book.
Setting up an informal classroom library at one corner of the campus can also help students to read for leisure. I think the University of Buea in Cameroon has such an experience instituted by the United States Embassy called [the] ‘American corner’. These types of practice certainly operate in other universities in Africa and should be encouraged.
UWN: So what infrastructure is needed to improve a reading and publishing culture in higher education in Africa?
GN: I remember that the late Professor Bernard Fonlon from Cameroon recommended three pillars of any robust university, which include a printing press, a library and a bookshop.
These three elements are, by themselves, the bedrock of a reading culture. Universities and higher education authorities in Africa should ensure they invest in these three elements for quality teaching and learning. Also, authors or publishers should be invited periodically to the campus to deliver motivational talks. This helps the students to have mentors and alter egos who are attached to the written word.
UWN: Most university lecturers limit their writings only to duplicated notes of their academic works, what is called in French polycopy. What do you think about this?
GN: There is a famous aphorism that says “publish or perish”. This aphorism is key to knowledge producers if they have to make an impact on knowledge consumers.
University lecturers have a duty to educate and to disseminate knowledge and one of the most affordable and accessible mediums to use is the book.
Lecturers can and should continue to publish academic work for academic career mobility but it is getting more and more incumbent on lecturers, who are seen as the academic light of society, to shine that light on various issues confronting society today.
So, beyond the institutional pressure imposed on the lecturer to publish academic material, there’s a society exigence that obliges lecturers to reach out to the wider audience through the written word.
Students are mentees, always looking for inspiration from scholarly academics, and this link is permanently established when writing becomes the bridge.
Without lecturers holding their forte as mentors to their students, their own students will continue to hold musicians and footballers as their alter egos.
UWN: As a publisher, do you agree that the reading culture among Africans is generally on the decline?
GN: I am not often at ease when we say there is a paucity in our reading culture, especially when people keep using this worn-out cliché, ‘If you want to hide something from an African, keep it in a book’. We all read … it could be the Bible, it could be headlines on newspapers in front of kiosks, and it could even be textbooks.
Our worry, especially as creative writers, is that we seldom find Africans (students, lecturers, or even the general public) sitting in a quiet corner flipping the pages of, especially, books for infotainment, not books for exams. Is it that they do more of home reading than public reading?
Yes, if we talk of especially general reading, there is a cause for concern because you hardly find, especially young persons, holding books the way we used to hold [books from the] African Writers Series, Nick Carter, James Hadley Chase, Mills & Boon ...
The student girls used to read and exchange books the way girls of today change their hairdos, and the boys, through reading, enriched their language power the way boys today enrich their pocket power.
Of course, I am aware that digital technology is in fierce competition with our reading culture, but how can you explain that the inventors of this technology are still attached to book reading? Board a bus, a tram, a train or a plane in white-man country and see how young persons and adults are still glued to reading.
UWN: How would you assess the book sector in Cameroon?
GN: Let us start with the book professionals themselves. Each book sector needs to be active to make the book chain completely functional. This does not seem to be the case in Cameroon, where book professionals have traditionally resigned to complacency and pessimism rather than take professional initiatives.
The first professional initiative needed in the book sector is the setting up of associations. I am still to discover the existence of a vibrant readers’ club, writers’ association, publishers’ association, librarians’ club, book council, and so on, in Cameroon.
Those that exist have been timid in carrying out the literary activities needed to keep afloat the book sector. A few associations like the Buea Writers’ Club, Douala Writers’ Club, National Book Development Council, African Book Development, South West Association of Librarians, South West Booksellers’ Association, Cameroon Publishers’ Association, CREPLA [in French, the Centre Régional de Promotion du Livre en Afrique au Sud du Sahara, and, in English, the Regional Centre for Book Promotion in Sub-Saharan Africa] and the Anglophone Cameroon Writers’ Association have made some strides in addressing the various issues inherent in the book sector but have hardly made a national impact.
The result is that few books are published, in the conventional publishing sense, few book workshops are organised, literary awards are absent, our libraries have emptied their customers into beer parlours and football, students graduate from universities without buying a single book, no university has a press, a National Book Week or Book Fair is anathema, and the World Book Day is a non-event.
Without professional interest and solidarity, without the libido and passion for books, without a coordinated and harmonised approach to overhauling the rustic wheel of the book machinery, first by the book professionals themselves, the book sector in Cameroon is in danger of succumbing to the pangs of liquidation.
Without prejudice to, and exclusion of other segments of the book chain, the most important segment that needs re-energising in Cameroon today is the jerky Cameroon Publishers’ Association created in 1997. With a vibrant autonomous, indigenous publishing industry, the other segments will fall into place.
Originally published in University World News
University World News (UWN) met him for an interview on how academics can drive a publishing culture in the university milieu in Africa and help make libraries more relevant to the higher education system on the continent.
UWN: You presided over the recent celebration of World Book Day in Buea. As a publisher, what is the history behind this day and what does it mean to you?
GN: Let me say here that the purpose of a World Book Day is generally to promote reading for pleasure, which is different from reading for examinations.
Generally, World Book Day targets the youth, especially students, because there is the saying, ‘catch them while they are young’. And so at their early formative years, a reading culture among the youths sinks into their psyche and, once this spirit of the written language and literary skills gets seeded in them, it geminates into a bumper harvest of [embracing] a book culture in adulthood.
The guiding principle is that books transform how people see themselves and the world around them. This principle resonates every time we celebrate World Book Day [in April].
Remember, the African is a conversational being; he likes to discuss, to dialogue and the pages of a book often provide engaging platforms between the reader and the writer. So, the major activities carried out in Cameroon and many other countries in Africa to mark the celebration are principally panel discussions by some selected intellectuals and sometimes book exhibitions.
But some other aspects I have witnessed in other countries include regional book fairs, [the] organisation of writers’ forums and writers’ awards, book journey campaigns, reading competitions [and] librarians [who] do open days.
I think each country tries to contextualise its activities. It should be noted that world literature records this day as the date that several prominent authors died, including William Shakespeare, that we all know, and Miguel de Cervantes, a Spanish writer who wrote the famous epic novel called Don Quixote in 1605. I should also add that the day is actually named World Book and Copyright Day.
UWN: How can university lecturers help to develop a reading and book culture in the higher education system in Africa?
GN: As a student in the University of Yaounde in the early ’80s, our lecturers used to give us assignments that required our visiting libraries at the then American Cultural Centre and at the British Council, both in Yaounde.
So we did not depend entirely on lecture notes but were moulded early enough to know how to source information through books in the library. One major piece of evidence to show that we had been reading books for the assignment was the bibliography required.
I am sure this practice continues in some higher institutes today. A reading culture is so vital in the life of any student, but sometimes the lecturers need to push the students to recognise this fact.
Lecturers can establish book discussions within their classes or book clubs outside their lecture halls. In either case, this is an opportunity for students to discuss with their peers books they have read. Their motivational presentations would act as a recommendation that triggers curiosity from others to also read the book.
Setting up an informal classroom library at one corner of the campus can also help students to read for leisure. I think the University of Buea in Cameroon has such an experience instituted by the United States Embassy called [the] ‘American corner’. These types of practice certainly operate in other universities in Africa and should be encouraged.
UWN: So what infrastructure is needed to improve a reading and publishing culture in higher education in Africa?
GN: I remember that the late Professor Bernard Fonlon from Cameroon recommended three pillars of any robust university, which include a printing press, a library and a bookshop.
These three elements are, by themselves, the bedrock of a reading culture. Universities and higher education authorities in Africa should ensure they invest in these three elements for quality teaching and learning. Also, authors or publishers should be invited periodically to the campus to deliver motivational talks. This helps the students to have mentors and alter egos who are attached to the written word.
UWN: Most university lecturers limit their writings only to duplicated notes of their academic works, what is called in French polycopy. What do you think about this?
GN: There is a famous aphorism that says “publish or perish”. This aphorism is key to knowledge producers if they have to make an impact on knowledge consumers.
University lecturers have a duty to educate and to disseminate knowledge and one of the most affordable and accessible mediums to use is the book.
Lecturers can and should continue to publish academic work for academic career mobility but it is getting more and more incumbent on lecturers, who are seen as the academic light of society, to shine that light on various issues confronting society today.
So, beyond the institutional pressure imposed on the lecturer to publish academic material, there’s a society exigence that obliges lecturers to reach out to the wider audience through the written word.
Students are mentees, always looking for inspiration from scholarly academics, and this link is permanently established when writing becomes the bridge.
Without lecturers holding their forte as mentors to their students, their own students will continue to hold musicians and footballers as their alter egos.
UWN: As a publisher, do you agree that the reading culture among Africans is generally on the decline?
GN: I am not often at ease when we say there is a paucity in our reading culture, especially when people keep using this worn-out cliché, ‘If you want to hide something from an African, keep it in a book’. We all read … it could be the Bible, it could be headlines on newspapers in front of kiosks, and it could even be textbooks.
Our worry, especially as creative writers, is that we seldom find Africans (students, lecturers, or even the general public) sitting in a quiet corner flipping the pages of, especially, books for infotainment, not books for exams. Is it that they do more of home reading than public reading?
Yes, if we talk of especially general reading, there is a cause for concern because you hardly find, especially young persons, holding books the way we used to hold [books from the] African Writers Series, Nick Carter, James Hadley Chase, Mills & Boon ...
The student girls used to read and exchange books the way girls of today change their hairdos, and the boys, through reading, enriched their language power the way boys today enrich their pocket power.
Of course, I am aware that digital technology is in fierce competition with our reading culture, but how can you explain that the inventors of this technology are still attached to book reading? Board a bus, a tram, a train or a plane in white-man country and see how young persons and adults are still glued to reading.
UWN: How would you assess the book sector in Cameroon?
GN: Let us start with the book professionals themselves. Each book sector needs to be active to make the book chain completely functional. This does not seem to be the case in Cameroon, where book professionals have traditionally resigned to complacency and pessimism rather than take professional initiatives.
The first professional initiative needed in the book sector is the setting up of associations. I am still to discover the existence of a vibrant readers’ club, writers’ association, publishers’ association, librarians’ club, book council, and so on, in Cameroon.
Those that exist have been timid in carrying out the literary activities needed to keep afloat the book sector. A few associations like the Buea Writers’ Club, Douala Writers’ Club, National Book Development Council, African Book Development, South West Association of Librarians, South West Booksellers’ Association, Cameroon Publishers’ Association, CREPLA [in French, the Centre Régional de Promotion du Livre en Afrique au Sud du Sahara, and, in English, the Regional Centre for Book Promotion in Sub-Saharan Africa] and the Anglophone Cameroon Writers’ Association have made some strides in addressing the various issues inherent in the book sector but have hardly made a national impact.
The result is that few books are published, in the conventional publishing sense, few book workshops are organised, literary awards are absent, our libraries have emptied their customers into beer parlours and football, students graduate from universities without buying a single book, no university has a press, a National Book Week or Book Fair is anathema, and the World Book Day is a non-event.
Without professional interest and solidarity, without the libido and passion for books, without a coordinated and harmonised approach to overhauling the rustic wheel of the book machinery, first by the book professionals themselves, the book sector in Cameroon is in danger of succumbing to the pangs of liquidation.
Without prejudice to, and exclusion of other segments of the book chain, the most important segment that needs re-energising in Cameroon today is the jerky Cameroon Publishers’ Association created in 1997. With a vibrant autonomous, indigenous publishing industry, the other segments will fall into place.
Originally published in University World News
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