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The World According to Monsanto

Author(s) : Marie-Monique ROBIN ; Translated by George HOLOCH
Publishing countries : Australia, United States, India
Language(s) : English
Price : £16.99

The result of a remarkable three-year-long investigation that took award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin across four continents (North and South America, Europe, and Asia), The World According to Monsanto tells the little-known yet shocking story of this agribusiness giant—the world’s leading producer of GMOs (genetically modified organisms)—and how its new “green” face is no less malign than its PCB- and Agent Orange–soaked past.

Robin reports that, following its long history of manufacturing hazardous chemicals and lethal herbicides, Monsanto is now marketing itself as a “life sciences” company, seemingly convinced about the virtues of sustainable development. However, Monsanto now controls the majority of the yield of the world’s genetically modified corn and soy—ingredients found in more than 95 percent of American households—and its alarming legal and political tactics to maintain this monopoly are the subject of worldwide concern.

Released to great acclaim and controversy in France, throughout Europe, and in Latin America alongside the documentary film of the same name, The World According to Monsanto is sure to change the way we think about food safety and the corporate control of our food supply.

Marie-Monique Robin is an award-winning French journalist and filmmaker. She received the 1995 Albert-Londres Prize, awarded to investigative journalists in France. She is the director and producer of over thirty documentaries and investigative reports filmed in Latin America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. She lives outside of Paris. George Holoch has translated more than twenty books, including Notes on the Occupation (The New Press). He lives in Hinesburg, Vermont.

Year of publication: 2010 ; 384 pages

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Conclusions of the Arabic-language network (Tunis, April 2010)

Publishing countries : Tunisia

Back from Tunis, where the Arabic-language network meeting was held, the Alliance publishes the first outcomes of this meeting. Here you will find the network’s translation and joint co-publishing projects, the next steps towards the development of the Arabic-language network, the creation of specialised training, etc.

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Haiti, let’s mobilise for the long haul, February 2010

The International Alliance of Independent Publishers calls on all international solidarity organisations to mobilise in Haiti. The Alliance will do do its outmost to support Haitian book professionals in the long-term, particularly librarians, publishers and booksellers, by joining forces with existing and future stakeholders in Haiti.

The importance of culture should be considered in the reconstruction process. In the Haïtian context, where symbolism has a special place, reinventing Haïti also involves supporting the arts and culture, particularly books and authors that promote the people’s complex and fascinating identity. A people cut off from its culture is a dead people.

Rodney Saint-Éloi, author and publisher member of the International Alliance of Independent Publishers

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Meeting of the Arabic-language network, Tunis, April 25 - 28, 2010

Publishing countries : Tunisia

Four years after the International Assembly on Independent Publishing in Paris in July 2007, we are delighted to be bringing together the Arabic-language network of the Alliance in Tunisia, during the Tunis International Book Fair.

The Alliance organizes a round table open to professionals, focussing on publishing and cultural diversity, at the heart of the Tunis International Book Fair on Monday 26 April at 4.00 pm.

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Afrilivres: restructuration

The Afrilivres Association elected – during its Extraordinary Annual General Meeting on Tuesday, 16 March 2010 via an online forum – a new Committee. For the Alliance, the results of this AGM constitute the beginning of a restructuration of the Pan-African Association. The communiqué issued jointly by the two associations calls on institutions and all friends of Afrilivres to express their renewed confidence.

For more information: www.afrilivres.net

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Youth catalogue - « À la découverte de la littérature jeunesse africaine » and its supplement « Les Afriques en fête »

To access the youth catalogues, click here and here.

These catalogues are available from the Alliance. Contact us telephonically or by email for all enquiries and orders.

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Fair speech

The notion of fair speech expands the idea of ‘free speech’ to incorporate the concept of justice. Indeed, in a context of media concentration, dominant powers (whether political, economic, religious, ideological, etc.) are the most represented and heard (because they are powerful or loud). Fair speech fosters speech equity for other voices that are often marginalised and/or censored to be heard. Fair speech therefore promotes an equitable access to expression (for example for women, historically marginalised groups, etc.), enabling an authentic diversity of voices. This concept was created by Betty McLellan in Unspeakable (Spinifex Press, 2010, Australia) and promoted by Susan Hawthorne in Bibliodiversity: A Manifesto for Independent Publishing (Spinifex Press, 2014, Australia).

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Haiti, let’s mobilise for the long haul

Publishing countries : Haiti

The International Alliance of Independent Publishers calls on all international solidarity organisations to mobilise in Haiti. The Alliance will do do its outmost to support Haitian book professionals in the long-term, particularly librarians, publishers and booksellers, by joining forces with existing and future stakeholders in Haiti.


The importance of culture should be considered in the reconstruction process. In the Haïtian context, where symbolism has a special place, reinventing Haïti also involves supporting the arts and culture, particularly books and authors that promote the people’s complex and fascinating identity. A people cut off from its culture is a dead people
.

Rodney Saint-Éloi, author and publisher member of the International Alliance of Independent Publishers

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Reconstruire l’Afrique - French version

Author(s) : Ousmane SY
Publishing countries : France, Mali
Language(s) : French
Price : 19 €

Ousmane Sy describes his journey, that of a negotiator extraordinaire, moving between action and reflection, between Africa and the world, between the past and the future. In this work from his lively and unapologetic pen dipped in personal experience, Ousmane Sy sets out real alternatives: an authentic decentralisation, a radical reform of the state, regional integration achieved by the people, the rethinking of international aid. What he offers us is a real project for Mali and Africa.

Ousmane SY is a doctor of economic and social development. He was a researcher at the Rural Economic Institute and headed up the UNDP programme in Mail, then piloted the Mission for Centralisation and Institutional Reform in Mali, before joining the governement as Minister of Territorial Adminstration and Local Communities, which gives him the opportunity to put his theoretical work into political practice. He has also created his own centre of expertise and advice, the Centre of Political and Institutional Expertise in Africa (CPIEA). Since 2002 he has been a coordinator for the Alliance for the Rethinking of Governance in Africa.

Preface: Pierre CALAME

Year of publication: 2009, 224 pages, 14 X 21,5 cm, ISBN: 978-2-84377-149-1

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Report of the Portuguese-language network and Spanish-language networks meetings - Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), November 25 -27, 2009

Publishing countries : Brazil

The Spanish-language network and the Portuguse-language network of the Alliance met in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) from 25 till 27 November 2009, during “la Primavera dos livros”. These meetings allowed both networks to build their respective initiative programme for 2010-2011 but also to strengthen the “regionalisation” of the Alliance, through an inter-network meeting.

The stand of the Alliance. From left to right: Gustavo Mauricio García Arenas and Lucía Moncada, REIC (Colombia), Gonzalo Badal, EDIN (Chile), Maira, Pablo Moya, AEMI (México), Daniela Allerbon, EDINAR (Argentina), Anna Danieli, TRILCE (Uruguay) and Guido Indij, coordinator of the Spanish-language network

Guido INDIJ, coordinator of the Spanish-language network (on the left) and Araken GOMES RIBEIRO, coordinator of the Portuguese-language network (on the right)

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Bibliodiversity Observatory

“Terres solidaires” collection

The “Terres solidaires” collection was created in 2007, to strengthen the circulation of African literature in the Francophone space. Publishing houses that contribute to the collection are based in sub-Saharan Africa and in North Africa. Initially created to republish books written by African writers published in France and make them accessible to an African readership through the solidarity co-publishing process, it is now republishing books originally appearing on African publishers’ lists. Such is the case with Munyal, les larmes de la patience, by Djaïli Amadou Amal, the 13th title of the collection, originally published in 2017 by Proximité publishing, based in Yaoundé, Cameroun.

Publishers select texts and work in close collaboration throughout the editorial process. The principle of a selling price adapted to the buying power of the readership (on average 3 500 FCFA, or 5 Euros) remains one of its pillars.

Read more here...

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Digital Lab

The Digital Lab was created by the International Alliance of Independent Publishers to support independent publishers in their activities, reflections and digital practices. As a space of reflection, exchanges and discussions on digital bibliodiversity in both the Northern and Southern hemisphere, the Lab also offers digital tools adapted to the needs of independent publishers while respecting local ecosystems.

The Alliance Lab is built around four focus areas:

  • Tools and resources for professionals
  • Reflections and discussions on digital publishing, including innovative initiatives in the countries of the South (surveys and analyses);
  • In situ workshops (capacity building and peer exchanges on digital matters);
  • A personalised tutorial offered to member publishers of the Alliance.

The Lab is updated and facilitated by independent publishers, the team of the Alliance and also through partnerships with independent professional organisations and collectives from various continents.

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Publishing in Africa: Where Are We Now? An Update for 2019, by Hans M. Zell

Read here the pre-print version uploaded on Academia.edu 21 May 2019

Final version, to be published in two parts, in Logos: Journal of the World Publishing Community (https://brill.com/view/journals/logo/logo-overview.xml)

Part I: Volume 30 (2019): Issue 3, Part II: Volume 30 (2019): Issue 4

Reprinted with permission of the author.
Copyright © Hans Zell Publishing Consultants 2019

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Les éditeurs d’Afrique francophone sur l’échiquier du “glocal” (1980-2019), by Raphaël Thierry

Abstract:

In terms of languages, markets and labels, African publishing represents a field of constant discourse. It also continually questions not just the way we look at books, but also our relationship with them and with the international publishing industry. The time has long passed when the leading discourse on publishing in Africa was devoted primarily to a “book famine” related to the African economic crisis of the 1980s. Over the past three decades, the African book market has done nothing but grow on the continent, diversifying its increasingly dense and transnational production through the circulation of books and of publishing information. Nonetheless, quite often African publishing is presented in terms of the difficulties faced by its stakeholders, rather than those stakeholders’ agency, their capacity to develop their markets. Indeed, history has shown that the African publishing industry is a mirror of the globalisation of publishing and of its economic flux. That being the case, the economic challenges that one can observe in the African industry is thus a reflection of the imbalances, alternatives – also margins – of a world of books that is increasingly concentrated. In this sense, African publishing invites a two-fold interrogation: in Africa it must advocate a cultural and economic legitimacy within evolving socio-political situations and an outward-looking educational market. Internationally, it must position itself in terms of non-African publishing of literature and non-fiction that makes up the majority of African intellectual production in the world. By examining the discourse around African books, African publishers’ discourse, and the evolution of African books in French since the 1980’s, this article aims to question the relationship between the book industry in Africa and the globalisation of books phenomenon in order to bring to light a network of exchanges, tensions, and influences that turns the African book market into a veritable “glocal” space.

Read the article here (in French).

Thierry, R. (2019). Les éditeurs d’Afrique francophone sur l’échiquier du « glocal »
(1980-2019). Mémoires du livre / Studies in Book Culture, 10 (2).
https://doi.org/10.7202/1060972ar

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Public book policies (Bibliodiversity Journal)

Contact the Alliance team to get a free digital version of this issue dedicated to public book policies.

Publication: June 2019
The Bibliodiversity Journal is copublished by Double ponctuation and the International Alliance of independent publishers.
See other issues of Bibliodiversity Journal here: “Self-publishing”; “Committed publishing”…

Overview of the issue:
From censorship to safeguarding, public initiatives in the book sector are varied.
This issue proposes academic articles, professional’ views and two previously unpublished regional analyses (sub-Saharan Africa and Spanish-speaking Latin America), taking us from Russia to Switzerland, via Syria, Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco, Quebec, France and Argentina.
All contributions seek an answer to this question: does the intervention of public authorities support editorial diversity?

Contents of the ‘Public book policies issue’:

  • “Introduction: action taken by public authorities to support books”, by Étienne Galliand, Editor-in-Chief of Bibliodiversity Journal
  • “Federalism and cohesion – New book policies in Switzerland”, by Carine Corajoud, historian (Switzerland)
  • “A relative autonomy – A comparative analysis of the room for manoeuvre
    in public publishing in France”, by Hélène Seiler-Juilleret, École des hautes études en sciences sociales (Higher School of Social Sciences, France)
  • “Negotiating control, promoting reading – Independent publishers and the Russian State in the 2010s”, by Bella Ostromooukhova, Paris Sorbonne University (France and Russia)
  • “Morocco: escheated books – The shortcomings in state involvement in the books and written word sector”, by Anouk Cohen, CNRS (France and Morocco) and Kenza Sefrioui, Ph.D. in comparative literature, literary critic and publisher (Morocco)
  • “Government policy on books in Tunisia” – A publisher’s view, by Nouri Abid, Med Ali publishers (Tunisia)
  • “Government policy on books in Syria” – A publisher’s view, by Samar Haddad, Atlas Publishing (Syria)
  • “Government policy on books in Lebanon” – A bookseller’s view, by Michel Choueiri, bookseller (France and the United Arab Emirates)
  • “Government policy on books in sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar. A cross-sectional analysis of data collected in 12 countries”, by Luc Pinhas, University of Paris 13 Villetaneuse (France)
  • “Publishing and public authorities: the Quebec case – Or the influence of public action on editorial independence?”, by Pascal Genêt, Sherbrooke University (Quebec-Canada)
  • “Laws, public policies, institutions and measures to support books and reading
    in Latin America – An analysis of data gathered in 10 countries”, by Andrés E. Fernández Vergara (University of Chile)
  • “From culture towards business – An analysis of a state support programme
    for local publishing in Buenos Aires: Opción Libros”, by José de Souza Muniz Jr., Federal Centre for Technological Education, Minas Gerais (Brazil)

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Publishing & the Book in Africa: A Literature Review for 2018, by Hans M. Zell

Publishing & the Book in Africa: A Literature Review for 2018
The fourth in a series of annual reviews of select new literature in English that has appeared on the topic of publishing and the book sector in sub-Saharan Africa.

Read the pre-print version here.

To be published in The African Book Publishing Record, Volume 44, Issue 2, (May 2019)

Reprinted with permission of the author.
Copyright © Hans Zell Publishing Consultants 2019

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African Book Industry Data & the State of African National Bibliographies, by Hans M. Zell

African Book Industry Data & the State of African National Bibliographies:
Read the Pre-print version here.

Published in The African Book Publishing Record, Volume 44, Issue 4 (Dec 2018): 363-389.

Reprinted with permission of the author.
Copyright © Hans Zell Publishing Consultants 2018

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Self-publishing (January 2019) / Coordinated by Sylvie Bosser

Abstract of the issue:
Self-publishing is less and less perceived as an egocentric, narcissistic act – perhaps even spiteful. Bypassing the selective function of a third party (the publisher) in favour of a direct relationship with the potential reader - whether by choice or by necessity, when one has been rejected by those “in the know”- seems on the contrary perfectly in tune with the signs of our times, which advocates for transversal relations, fewer intermediaries and direct relationships between producers and consumers, quicker channels, wariness towards experts, elites and comitology.
If self-publishing is uninhibited, it is vibrant in its digital format, where entry requirements are now minor. However, is self-publishing a vector of bibliodiversity?
The notion of “independence” is also questioned by this development in terms of production. Indeed, the United States has often spoken of “indie” authors or ebooks, this figure of the independent author being now also assimilated and claimed in the French context. But what kind of independence are we talking about?

Contents of “Self-publishing”:

  • Self-publishing: a vector of bibliodiversity? / By Sylvie Bosser, University of Paris 8
  • Self-publishing in French literature. A historical overview of a multidimensional publishing practice / By Olivier Bessard-Banquy, University of Bordeaux-Montaigne
  • Self-published authors on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing. Motivations, identities, practices and expectations / By Stéphanie Parmentier, University of Bordeaux-Montaigne
  • Self-publishing of comics. A specific route into publishing / By Kevin Le Bruchec, University of Paris 13
  • The (in)visible third party. Mentoring emerging writers: a process that encourages self-publishing / By Marie Caffari and Johanne Mohs, Berne University of the Arts
  • Self-publishing: a unique phenomenon by its nature, scope and actors. Analysis of self-publishing in Latin America and beyond / By Daniel Benchimol, for the CERLALC
  • Literary self-publishing in Morocco. Conditions, challenges and social significations of an growing cultural practice / By Kaoutar Harchi, Centre for Research on Social Links
  • Self-publishing in Iran. A story of a dilemma against a backdrop of audacity / Case study of Azadeh Parsapour, publisher
  • Les Éditions du Net. An interview with Henri Mojon / By Sylvie Bosser, University of Paris 8

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