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For at least five years I've intended to start a publishing company, and over the last six months, together with three friends, it's happened as suddenly and as marvellously as a highveld thunderstorm. In about four weeks Electric Book Works will publish its first book: uTshepo Mde: Tall Enough.
For at least five years I've intended to start a publishing company, and over the last six months, together with three friends, it's happened as suddenly and as marvellously as a highveld thunderstorm. In about four weeks Electric Book Works will publish its first book: uTshepo Mde: Tall Enough (go visit the site, you can read this later). Next to my god-daughters Busi and Thandi, Tshepo is my favourite child. Tshepo will be published under our Vuvu imprint.
Tshepo is a small start, but we're so lucky to have it. It's the creation of artist Hannah Morris and academic and teacher Mhlobo Jadezweni, two truly wonderful authors. They're particularly fabulous for trusting a brand new small company with their work. Tshepo has also been made possible by many other people who've donated time, given suggestions, loaned us part of the print costs, and reminded us that we're right when we think that Tshepo is part of something special beginning in South African literature.
Tshepo is told in parallel Xhosa and English, and it's not the first children's book in Xhosa, nor the first dual-language storybook. But a paltry number of books of world-class quality exist in South Africa. High-quality children's books in Xhosa, Zulu, and other less-published languages are special not simply because they are rare. They are special because they will begin to establish new routes to book buyers that barely exist in South Africa at the moment. The publishing industry is beginning to see that it's pointless bemoaning a small book-buying market if you're only feeding it lousy books. The number, success and standing of English and Afrikaans trade imprints like Zebra, Oshun, Jacana, Kwela, Double Storey, Human & Rousseau, and Umuzi, among others, are due in large part to the drastic improvement of South African book production standards over the last three or four years. The same will be true of books in other languages.
In uTshepo Mde, Tshepo is a little boy who wants to be as tall as a tree. When he plants himself outside and turns into one, he realises he's got ahead of himself. Like Tshepo, EBW, Vuvu and its market will be tall one day. We can't rush it. As Tshepo's little bird friend sings, 'I am great in the world, I am small but I’m happy'.
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