Stories Across Africa in Reading

The core team working on the Stories across Africa project – Michael Amatchew (Ethiopia), Carole Bloch (South Africa), Nadia El Khouly (Egypt), Arabella Koopman (South Africa), Joshua Madumulla (Tanzania), Susan Mukobwajana (Rwanda) – spent a very productive five days at the University of Reading between 23–27 March.

We were joined at various points by publishers, educationalists, book distributors, a librarian and a professional translator who helped to provide a broader context for our discussions of the issues facing African language publishing in general and the Stories across Africa project in particular: Barbara Graham from the Pokomo Mother Tongue Project in Kenya, Mary Jay from the African Books Collective, Elibariki Moshi of Mture Publishers in Tanzania, Akoss Ofori-Mensah of Sub-Saharan Publishers in Ghana, Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa from the Publishing Department of Kwame Nkrumah University in Ghana, Joseph O'Reilly of First Read, Viviana Quiñones of La joie par les livres in France, Andy Smart, an Education and Publishing Consultant working in the Middle East and Africa, Tom Smith of Book Aid International and Wangui Wa Goro (Kenya and South Africa).

For a video newsclip reporting on the meeting, copy this link to your browser: http://mediasite.reading.ac.uk/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=4751c2dd3728469988931facfb346f92