English

Few days before the Seine-Saint-Denis children’s Book Fair in Montreuil (30 November-5 December 2016), twelve children’s book publishers and graphic designers from Benin, Brazil, France, Madagascar, Morocco, Portugal, and Togo will gather for a workshop on creation and graphic design in children’s book publishing. Through knowledge sharing, the participants will work on their on-going projects, tackling issues like text/images layout, pictures processing, specificity of bilingual books, tones and colours tones on books cover...

The workshop aims at :

• opening new horizons, discovering new approaches, not being stuck with some frames and norms ;
• questioning knowledge and professional practices of the publishers and of the graphic designers ;
• collectively finding resources and solutions to solve some obstacles ;
• sharing some existing (or to-be-created) tools ;
• reinforcing professional partnerships between African, Brazilian and European publishers.

This workshop follows the workshop organized in November 2015 (Graphic design in children’s book publishing - Africa/Europe perspectives). It is supported by the Centre national du livre, the French Institute of Brazil, and the French Institute of Madagascar. All participants agreed to volunteer their services – we thank them once again.

Representatives from 6 European collectives (Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland, Russia and Switzerland) will meet in Paris, at the invitation of the International Committee of independent publishers (ICIP). The main objectives of this meeting are to share knowledge, discuss business issues, plan partnerships, and build the foundations for future exchanges. This is only the first step towards strengthening an independent publishing open to the world, and guaranteeing bibliodiversity.
A part of this meeting will focus on the governance of the Alliance, as well as an assessment of the Bibliodiversity Observatory, some few months after its creation in July 2016.

Bibliodiversity… it is the daily life of independent publishers, what drives them. Why make it a special day, then ? To celebrate Spring Day in the Southern Hemisphere, for books to occupy public spaces, to share, connect, exchange, discuss, and have fun… Because diversity of ideas is essential to the construction of democratic societies, because independent publishers are its actors, together with authors, translators, illustrators, booksellers, librarians…

This year, some planned festivities and activities include :
• In Quebec, Mémoire d’encrier publishers, in partnership with the Maison de la Syrie (‘the House of Syria’), facilitate a Quebec-Syria literary meeting
• In Syria, Atlas Publishing convene booksellers and publishers in the heart of Damas
• In Chile, EDIN collective will distribute a list of independent publishers’ works in the country’s main libraries ; filmed activities will be held throughout the day
• In Colombia, public spaces (parks, public places) will be animated by publishers from the REIC collective…
• In Italy, the independent publishers members of the FIDARE get themself heard through a call
• In Spain, the ministry of Culture is launching a campaign in favor of bibliodiversity
• In Peru, the collective of independent publishers EIP is organizing an Independent Book Fair, from 23 to 25 September, to follow on facebook
• In Argentina, the collective of independent publisers EDINAR is planning bookcrossing, literary meetings...

Follow all the activities on the Alliance website and social media.

And have a look on the official B Day 2016 video !

« Elles marchent côte à côte, serrées l’une contre l’autre, avancent à petits pas vers jedu. La végétation les empêche d’aller plus vite. Elles ne se sont pas munies d’un coutelas, pour trancher les branches rebelles. D’ailleurs, elles ont tout leur temps. Il en est ainsi, lorsqu’on ignore où l’on va : point n’est besoin de se hâter... De quoi s’inquiéter quand on a tout perdu ? »
Dire, avec les mots les plus justes, l’interminable douleur de ceux qui restent après le départ du grand « poisson de fer » des étrangers aux « pieds de poule », tel est le mérite de ce roman de Léonora Miano. Rarement un roman a su nous faire vivre avec autant d’émotion le désespoir et le désarroi des familles frappées en pleine nuit par le feu prédateur des négriers.

Née à Douala (Cameroun) en 1973, Léonora Miano vit en France depuis 1991. L’Intérieur de la Nuit, son premier roman, est paru en 2005. Une dizaine d’autres ont suivi depuis lors, recevant de nombreuses distinctions littéraires. Son écriture s’attache aux expériences subsahariennes et afrodescendantes, les inscrivant dans la conscience du monde. La Saison de l’Ombre a reçu le prix Femina 2013.

Date de publication de la version panafricaine : 2016, 11,5 X 19 cm
Édition première en France : Grasset (2013)

Une coédition solidaire « Le livre équitable ».

« Un système économique et social est en état d’équilibre
dynamique lorsque des voix différentes peuvent être entendues ».

Inspiré de la notion de biodiversité, le terme « bibliodiversité » fait référence à un ensemble de publications variées dans le paysage éditorial, représentatives d’un système culturel équilibré où toutes les voix peuvent s’exprimer. Aujourd’hui, l’uniformisation des médias et la concentration des secteurs de l’édition et de la librairie favorisent le développement d’une culture standardisée et soumise, à grand renfort de campagnes marketing, à des exigences de rentabilité plus que d’originalité et de qualité. En quête d’une autre voix, les petits éditeurs indépendants entendent bien maintenir la diversité culturelle.

S’inspirant de son propre parcours, l’auteure, militante féministe australienne et éditrice indépendante engagée, fait ici le lien entre l’évolution de la place de la femme dans notre société et la bibliodiversité, entre l’oppression des femmes et celle
des créations à la marge, dédaignées par les poids lourds de l’édition. À l’heure du numérique et de l’autopublication, elle rappelle les fonctions indispensables de relecture et de mise en forme assurées par l’éditeur, qui garantissent la qualité d’un
ouvrage. Elle s’attache aussi à mettre en avant les talents d’innovation des petites structures indépendantes, développant une nouvelle forme d’ « écologie de l’édition » en marge des grosses structures vers une véritable bibliodiversité du XXI^e siècle.

Une traduction de l’anglais vers le français, couplée à une coédition solidaire entre 4 éditeurs en France (éditions Charles Léopold Mayer), en Suisse (éditions d’en bas), au Mali (Jamana) et au Cameroun (Presses universitaires d’Afrique).

From October, 19th to 23rd, meet the independent publishers at the Frankfurt Book Fair : more than 25 publishing houses from all around the world will be there !

You can find the publishers’ contact on the attached document. Do not wait to make an appointment !

The International Alliance of independent publishers demands that Turkish authorities immediately release publishers, authors and journalists currently detained. It is necessary to guarantee freedom of speech and publishing in Turkey. The Alliance joins the Turkish Publishers Association’s condemnation of the summary closure of publishing houses and media as a clear human rights violation, and urges the Turkish authorities to rescind those summary closures.

Through the support of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie and the partnership established with the Ivorian publishers association (Assedi), the Alliance’s Digital Lab will convene 18 publishers from Sub-Saharan Africa from 23 to 27 May, to a workshop focusing on :
* the production and marketing of digital books (session facilitated by Gilles Colleu, Vents d’ailleurs, France) ;
* management of the Alliance Press web template developed by the Alliance for publishers who do not have websites (session facilitated by Mouhammed Diop, Senegalese developer and designer of Alliance Press).

The workshop follows on the series of meetings/training workshops designed and implemented by the Alliance since 2010, and is aimed at publishers in particular from French-speaking Africa. In order to share knowledge and encourage ownership, all workshops and meetings of the Alliance are complemented by factsheets published on the Digital Lab website, and personalised online tutorials.

The workshop will be held at the occasion of the Abidjan Book Fair (26-28 May, Palais de la Culture), and will provide the opportunity for publishers to share the collective stand of the Afrilivres association. The Afrilivres Prize will be awarded on that occasion, in the presence of the recipient of the 2015 prize : Valesse publishers from Ivory Coast.

After studying political sciences, Laura Aufrère was for 5 years coordinator of the French confederation gathering not-for-profit cultural professional initiatives from a variety of disciplines (music, theater, outdoor and circus, visual arts, etc.), rooted in the solidarity economy movement (UFISC). She is now a PHD student in management, looking specifically into critical approaches in the organisation theory and the digital humanities fields. She studies commons and social and solidarity economy initiatives, focusing specifically on work and labour organisation, cooperation and governance issues, and social protection. She joins the Alliance Board in 2016 and is now its President.

In partnership with the Tunis Book Fair and the Union of Tunisian Publishers, and thanks to the support of the Fondation de France and the French Institutes of Tunisia and Lebanon, the Alliance organised a day focusing on public book policies in the Arab world on Thursday 30 March 2017.

Publishers from Algeria, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia presented a panorama of book public policies in their respective countries : Chilean and French publishers spoke on what is being implemented in their countries – a dialogue and exchange between professionals and public authorities, between continents, between cultures.

This day was initiated in the context of the Bibliodiversity Observatory and the mapping of public book policies in Latin America and the Arab world, on-going at the Observatory.

Call for proposal – looking for an author

The Alliance aims to produce an unprecedented study about freedom of publishing, listening to independent publishers about the following questions :
• What are the different infringements of freedom of publishing that independent publishers confront in their countries ?
• How do they face these threats in their daily professional life ?
• How do the publishers resist, preserve, and defend their freedom of publishing ? How do they circumvent censorship ?
• Are publishers more vulnerable today than they used to be ? Have there been some significant changes in recent years ?
• From the point of view of the publishers, is there a limit to freedom of publishing (and freedom of expression) ?
The study will be written in French. If you are interested in conducting this study, please send your proposal to the Alliance team before 13 March 2017.}

The sixth ordinary session of the Conference of Parties->https://en.unesco.org/creativity/convention/governing-bodies/conferences/6th-ordinary-session] to the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (Paris, UNESCO 12 - 15 June 2017) has approved the Operational Guidelines on the Implementation of the Convention in the Digital Environment.

Read the operational guidelines in English here.

Read the text of the Convention.
Read the Operational Guidelines of the Convention here.

The International Alliance of independent publishers demands that Turkish authorities immediately release publishers, authors and journalists currently detained. It is necessary to guarantee freedom of speech and publishing in Turkey. The Alliance joins the Turkish Publishers Association’s condemnation of the summary closure of publishing houses and media as a clear human rights violation, and urges the Turkish authorities to rescind those summary closures.

Read issue 4 of the journal Bibliodiversity.

Organised by Afrilivres Association, through the support of its partners and the support of OMEL (Malian book publishers organisation), the first edition of the African Languages Book Fair will convene professionals, academics, institutions, NGOs, and the general public for 3 days of discussions, sharing, exhibition, and sale of books in African languages. An unprecedented and unique event, not to be missed !

Extract from the Communiqué by the Alliance for a call for freedom of speech and publishing in Bangladesh, 10 November 2015 :

For several months, authors, bloggers, publishers and booksellers have been the victims of violent and deadly attacks in Bangladesh.

The International Alliance of independent publishers, representing 400 independent publishers from 45 countries in the world, condemns these murderous attacks and assault on freedom of speech and publishing. The Alliance also reaffirms the essential role needing to be played by public authorities, in Bangladesh and throughout the world to enable the emancipation of its citizens, and to guarantee a public space conducive to dialogue and peace. Plurality and diversity of ideas constitute the foundation of democracy. It is urgent that the Bangladeshi government protects and supports actors in the book industry, thus safeguarding the foundations necessary for their work and freedom of speech.

Publishing in Persian language presents a comprehensive and current overview of publishing in Persian language, in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, but also in the diaspora in Europe and the United States.
Articles, penned by Ali Amiri, Beytolah Biniaz, Masoud Hosseinipour, Farid Moradi, Laetitia Nanquette and Dilshad Rakhimov, enable an understanding of editorial markets through historical, economic, political and cultural perspectives.
This study sheds light on the work and publishing list of several independent publishers in Persian language, and thus enabling professional and intercultural exchanges.
Publishing in Persian language is available in Persian and English, and openly accessible on the Website of the International Alliance of Independent Publishers, in PDF, ePub and MOBI formats.

Summary of the study :
• Introduction, Beytolah Biniaz
• History of publishing in Iran, Farid Moradi
• Panorama of independent publishing in Iran, Farid Moradi
• Structure of the book market in Iran, Farid Moradi
• Cultural exchanges and translations between Iran and France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, Laetitia Nanquette
• Persian language publishers in Europe, Farid Moradi
• Publishing in Afghanistan, Ali Amiri
• Panorama of publishing in Tajikistan, Dilshad Rakhimov
• Publishing in Persian language in Uzbekistan, Farid Moradi and Masoud Hosseinipour

Publishing in Persian language, “État des lieux de l’édition” collection (Reports on the publishing world), International Alliance of independent publishers, 2015.
ISBN : 978-2-9519747-7-7 (Persian version)
ISBN : 978-2-9519747-8-4 (English version)

Publishing in Persian language was made possible through the support of the Prince Claus Fund. We thank all contributors, publishers, and professionals who participated to this collective endeavour –and particularly Sonbol Bahmanyar for the coordination of the study.

Indigenous publishing is integral to national identity and development : cultural, social, and economic. Such publishing reflects a people’s history and experience, belief systems, and their concomitant expressions through language, writing, and art. In turn, a people’s interaction with other cultures is informed by their published work. Publishing preserves, enhances, and develops a society’s culture and its interaction with others. In Africa, indigenous publishers continue to seek autonomy to pursue these aims : free from the constraints of the colonial past, the strictures of economic structural adjustment policies, the continuing dominance of multinational publishers (particularly in textbooks), regressive language policies, and lack of recognition by African governments of the economic and cultural importance of publishing. African publishers seek to work collectively, to harness the digital age, and to take their place in the international marketplace on equal terms, Africa’s own voice.

This article, by Walter Bgoya and Mary Jay, was originally published in Research in African Literatures, vol. 44, no. 2, Summer 2013, 17-34, published by Indiana University Press.