The Nigerian-American author won the Orange Prize in 2007 and her ‘Half of a Yellow Sun' has been voted the best of the Women's Prize's 25 years of winners.
Two African women are in the running for the 2020 Booker Prize, in a historic first for the UK's most prestigious literary prize - and a major boost for storytellers on the continent.
Wole Soyinka has used his time in lockdown to write his first novel in almost 50 years.
The Nigerian playwright and poet, who became the first African to win the Nobel prize for literature in 1986, published his widely celebrated debut novel, The Interpreters, in 1965. His second and most recent novel, Season of Anomy, was released in 1973.
Thabiso Mahlape is the founder of Blackbird Books in South Africa, an independent publishing house that is dedicated to giving young black writers a platform (www.blackbirdbooks.africa)... In between juggling submissions, proofs and sales, Mahlape is a columnist: she writes regularly for the Sowetan newspaper and has contributed to magazines such a Destiny and VISI. Read more
Critically acclaimed author Irenosen Okojie has won the AKO Caine prize for African writing, crediting her win with giving her "extra confidence" as a black, female experimental writer who has felt she was "operating on the fringes". Read more
In the mid-20th century, a feverish movement for independence from colonial governments paired with a growing university-educated class, who pushed for education on the continent to be decolonized, created the perfect conditions for the birth of anglophone African publishing. Read more
London, 19 May 2020 - The shortlist for the 2020 AKO Caine Prize for African Writing has been announced, featuring five stories that "speak eloquently to the human condition" through a diverse array of themes and genres. This year's shortlist was determined virtually by the judging panel.
The shortlisted authors for this year's Prize are from Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda and Tanzania. Read more
As the Caine Prize contenders visit the UK in advance of the announcement of the winner next week, chair of the judges Dr Peter Kimani discusses what the prize has meant to African writing Read more
More than 200 people from 40 countries attended the International Publishers Association's Africa Rising summit on June 13 and 14 in Nairobi. The event featured panel discussions and presentations on the challenges of professional publishing, both trade and educational, in Africa. Read more
Interviews and market information highlight just a few of the opportunities for African and international publishers to work together. This magazine was produced in cooperation with the International Publishers Association and its 'Africa Rising' seminar in Nairobi last week.
‘When an editor works with an author, she cannot help seeing into the medicine cabinet of his soul. All the terrible emotions, the desire for vindications, the paranoia, and the projection are bottled in there, along with all the excesses of envy, desire for revenge, all the hypochondriacal responses, rituals, defenses, and the twin obsessions with sex and money.
World of Books Group, the UK's largest retailer of used books, has partnered with the Society of Authors to launch a new grant to support writers as they work on 'books of any genre that have the power to inspire progressive behaviour change.' Read more
For all the armchair puzzlers for whom sudokus and crosswords have palled over the long months of lockdown, a fiendish new literary conundrum is about to slide on to bookshelves - with a rather lucrative and unusual reward.
I have been a film-maker for more than 30 years and have acquired filing cabinets full of international research. In my second career as a thriller author, these gems have not been wasted. All my books are based upon my past investigative documentaries. Read more
An economist's attempt to explain behavior in publishing or any other domain typically begins with the cost-benefit principle: an action should be taken if and only if the benefits of taking it exceed the corresponding costs. Read more
Yesterday's webinar "Publishing Now '21: Looking Forward," hosted by Westchester Publishing Services and Publishers WeeklyInternational news website of book publishing and bookselling including business news, reviews, bestseller lists, commentaries http://www.publishersweekly.com/, attracted more than 500 viewers, as industry insiders discussed the state of the publishing industry, the ways in which it has been changed by the pandemic, and the outlook going forward. Read more
No one in the industry was surprised last week when HarperCollins emerged as the buyer for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books & Media, the sixth-largest trade publisher in the U.S. Read more
Independent publishers including Carcanet, Comma Press and Otter-Barry Books say Arts Council England's second round of grants from its Culture Recovery Fund are much needed as publishers negotiate a "tough" market. Read more
The Authors Guild is asking its membership and allies in the publishing industry to contact their senators to express support for the PRO Act, which has passed the House and is under discussion by the Senate. The act would enable freelance writers and authors to bargain collectively with businesses that hire them, something currently restricted by antitrust law. Read more
It's a venerable global cultural institution, dedicated to freedom of expression and set to celebrate its centenary this year. Yet the writers' association PENSupported by eminent writers, this is the English branch of International Pen, which has centres in nearly 100 countries. It fights for freedom of expression and against political censorship. It campaigns for writers harassed, imprisoned and sometimes murdered for their views. http://www.englishpen.org/ is displaying signs of tension over a declaration claiming the right of authors to imagination, allowing them to describe the world from the point of view of characters from other cultural backgrounds.
When Claudio Gatti published an investigation into Elena Ferrante's identity, a few years ago, he raised an outcry both in Italy and abroad. He had pried into the author's privacy, violated her right to remain anonymous. It was unfair, it was irrelevant, we didn't want to know. Read more
'I like to live in a nice house. I like to play to a big audience. A lot of people enjoy the stories. I don't think that's anything to get all pumped up about, and I don't think it's anything to get depressed about.'