REBUILDING THE BROKEN
LITERARY SYNERGY
Winzim
Online Media
Dr. Cheela Chilala from Zambia
The
first two papers presented on July 29, 2019, at the Indaba, seemed to address
both extrinsic and intrinsic features of the synergy that ought to exist
between major stakeholders in the book industry.
Monica Mpambawashe, a writer and
journalist, chaired this insightful session.
In her articulation of how the book
industry nosedived after the boom of the early days, Roseleine Torai Kumvekera
(nee Mukwewa), a lecturer at Nyadire Teachers College, showed a number of
factors behind the boom and what needs to be done to restore it in the
contemporary times.
She decried the diminishing reading
culture, a phenomenon she described as being caused by a ‘mutation and evolution’.
Kumvekera told of the story of how this
mutation and evolution has happened. After Independence, the literacy level in
Zimbabwe shot up, the ZIBF was launched, writers wrote and publishers published.
Yet along the way, the literary sector took a downward route and Kumvekera
attributed this to influences of the e-books and the TV, among other forces.
Today, the updated curriculum is calling
for writers to produce material for the education system, which shows there is
a demand for books. All this, she said, exposes the debt which authors have to
pay the reader.
While the readers have always had diverse
tastes, Kumvekera said authors must strive to meet the demand.
Her paper was based on a research she
undertook with a colleague to see how the current broken relationship between
the author and the reader can be resolved.
Readers and writers, she reasoned, owe each
other certain things such as honesty, information, respect, adventure,
platforms for conversation, loyalty.
“Today’s young people love adventure. As
they are given adventure, they’re being taught life skills. Writers, therefore,
owe readers escape routes, destination and adventure,” she said.
Publishers, on the other hand, need to be
loyal to the writer. She said due to the absence of loyalty and respect for
authorship, many authors are deciding to self-publish.
Furthermore, writers owe readers valuable
information, yet ironically, it is the reader who also must provide the
information for the writer to write.
According to her, the remedy lies in
producing more books in various forms such as audio and e-books, in innovative
bookselling and in having workshops for parents to educate them on legal
purchase of books.
Dr. Cheela Chilala carefully examined the
intrinsic power of the book versus the power which people try to exercise over
the book. His paper was titled ‘Are Stories Innocent: An Evaluation of the
Relationship between Books and People’.
What was interesting about this paper is
that it subtly brought about the issue of ‘the politics of reading’ which has
been discussed in fields of literary philosophy.
Dr. Chilala, who believes in the power of
books, said, “Books are so powerful that they leave footprints on the sand of
human history and development and these footprints are three dimensional.”
To illustrate this power existent in
books, this power that leaves footprints in the lives of people, he talked
about how the great African writer Chinua Achebe once reacted to a fiction text
called Mr. Johnson written by a
British writer.
The book Mr. Johnson had so much power that it affected Achebe and Dr.
Chilala said this could have been the reason why Achebe decided to write one of
his novels almost in response to way this book portrayed the African people,
Nigerians in particular.
After reading Mr. Johnson, Achebe had to say that there is actually such a thing
as a “poisoned tale”, meaning that the writer has the power to actually arrange
text in such a manner that its innocence becomes questionable. The book,
according to Dr. Chilala’s presentation, evoked in Achebe his “childhood
assumptions of the innocence of the stories”.
Even today, the Zambian lecturer added,
people are still approaching a book with the view that it is objective and has
an innocent story. This urges readers to invest greater scrutiny when reading.
About the power of people over books, Dr.
Chilala showed the Indaba delegates the battle being fought now between the two
powers he highlighted – people exerting power over the power of books. Book
banning, author’s imprisonment or execution, are all forms of power which
people try to exercise over a book.
He urged parents to scrutinize the
content of what their children read or watch and stop the habit of assuming
that the stories are innocent.
Looked at closely, Dr. Chilala’s paper provided
insights into what he termed a “mutually beneficial triangular relationship”
between the author, the book and the reader.
After the two presenters, the Indaba
engaged in questions, comments and open discussion from which developed many ideas
about how synergies can be created in the book industry.
NB:
A look at the Keynote Speech and the afternoon session coming in the next post.
Thank
you.
