The words local and location share the same Latin root \u2014 locus, meaning \u201cplace\u201d \u2014 without the hierarchy the term later acquired. In the African context, centuries of empire and trade have turned local into shorthand for \u201cperiphery,\u201d \u201cdeveloping,\u201d or \u201cnot yet global.\u201d It\u2019s a distortion worth interrogating. Language carries power and often reproduces the hierarchies it claims to dismantle.<\/p>\n
In publishing, this shift is far from harmless. A novelist from Kigali, Kingston, or Kabul may be central to their country\u2019s literary life, yet in London, New York, or Paris, they\u2019re reframed as \u201cemerging.\u201d This isn\u2019t about talent \u2014 it\u2019s about the machinery of discovery and extraction: translation, distribution, editorial attention, and institutional power that some geographies take for granted.<\/p>\n
Terms like local, emerging, or underrepresented aren\u2019t neutral. They carry the weight of history, geography, power, and capital. Settings such as Zadie Smith\u2019s Kilburn, Sally Rooney\u2019s Castlebar in County Mayo, or Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez\u2019 Macondo are not called \u201clocal fiction\u201d, yet they are no more or less \u201clocal\u201d than a Fatima Bala whose stories are rooted in Kaduna, Ayi Kwei Armah\u2019s Accra, Niq Mhlongo\u2019s Soweto, and Leila Aboulela\u2019s Khartoum. A novelist from Kaduna, Kigali, Kingston, or Kabul may be central to their country\u2019s literary ecosystem, yet in London or New York or Paris, they\u2019re reframed as \u201cemerging.\u201d This is not about talent. This is about the Western logic of \u201cthe first\u201d and its imperative for \u201cdiscovery\u201d. It is about the infrastructure of circulation and extraction \u2014 translation, distribution, editorial care and institutional power \u2014 that have long taken for granted.<\/p>\n
Every global begins with a local. Everyone exports their \u201clocal\u201d \u2014 and the world decides whether to follow. The question is who has the infrastructure and influence to make that leap possible.<\/p>\n
For African publishers, \u201cconnecting local writers to global audiences\u201d shouldn\u2019t mean reinforcing a one-way flow of value, where legitimacy is bestowed elsewhere. That is not equity, but soft coloniality. Amplifying voices across geographies must preserve context, nuance, and political complexity. We are all rooted in a place before our ideas travel. The global is not neutral; it is the accumulation of many locals.<\/p>\n
If we are to reimagine the literary world beyond treating otherness as trend, beyond commodifying Black pain and trauma, we must refuse to mistake representation and visibility for liberation and power. We need encounters that move in multiple directions, where power circulates rather than accumulates. That requires multilingual infrastructure, platforms for authors to speak on their own terms, and a decolonization of the frameworks used to measure excellence, success, and worth.<\/p>\n
As a publisher working between Abuja and London, committed to African and Afro-diasporic books, I see three imperatives. First, invest in ecosystems, not just talent pipelines. Publishing may not deliver Silicon Valley-style returns, but it offers something else: social investment and soft power. A thriving African publishing ecosystem shapes narratives, strengthens cultural influence, and builds intellectual, political, and economic capital.<\/p>\n
Second, create partnerships that acknowledge the complexity and power imbalances between publishers, editors, translators, and writers inside and outside Africa. That means co-publishing models, joint acquisitions, and risk-sharing arrangements that do not always place London or New York as the final stage.<\/p>\n
Third, unsettle the colonial grammar of center and periphery, local and global. These terms are shaped by power relations. Writers and publishers are not passive recipients of global opportunities \u2014 they are architects of their own literary futures, grounded in their own locus.<\/p>\n
Africa needs capital and networks. But above all, it needs to decolonize its imagination and the language used to describe its work. We must choose words rooted in critical tenderness, understanding, and mutual respect. Only then can we build the literary world we claim to want \u2014 one where no writer or publisher\u2019s value depends on proximity to whiteness, the global minority, or the empire of Englishes.<\/p>\n
And perhaps then local can return to its original meaning: simply, proudly, of a place \u2014 rooted, not reduced or reconstituted in the language of empire.<\/p>\n
Bibi Bakare-Yusuf is the co-founder and publishing director of Cassava Republic Press, an Abuja-based publishing house.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The words local and location share the same Latin root \u2014 locus, meaning \u201cplace\u201d \u2014 without the hierarchy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[64,63,457,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-59957","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-books","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}