A Tale of Resistance

Helon Habila writes at Granta:

After 1985 the military regime systematically undermined the once-buoyant, fuel-driven economy of Nigeria. The country’s infrastructure collapsed. There were no plans for industrial and technological recovery. Local manufacturers couldn’t compete with the cheap foreign goods that were dumped daily on our shores: everything was imported, including toilet paper. Publishing was one of the businesses that was worst hit. What small market there had been, thanks to a pre-independence curiosity about African literature--which had encouraged energetic literary activity inside the country--fizzled out because ordinary people couldn’t afford to buy books for pleasure. The big publishing houses disappeared, to be replaced by small-time hustlers moonlighting as publishers...[continue reading]