As many publishing houses are located in the same country (or even in the same city), it is necessary to zoom in on the country or city you are interested in to see all the publishing houses.
12, boulevard National
13001 Marseille
France
www.wildproject.org
Wildproject is an independent publishing house founded by Baptiste Lanaspeze, a pioneer in French-language ecological humanities. Dreamt of in New York in 2003, established in Paris in 2008, Wildproject is growing since 2009 in Marseille, between city and nature, between North and South.
The catalogue explores the ecological revolution of knowledge and practices, with a focus on places and stories.
In 10 years, Wildproject has become a reference in ecological humanities. Philosophy, biology, ethology, social sciences, geography, literature, urban planning, agriculture, music, contemporary art...: far from being a niche, ecology crosses all spheres of culture.
Wildproject thus invites us to go beyond the project of modern civilization – with founding works of ecological thought, with essays on political and decolonial ecology, with geographical narratives.
Read:
Rachel CARSON
Collection « Petite bibliothèque d’écologie populaire »
« Printemps silencieux constitue la naissance du mouvement écologiste. » Al Gore
Premier ouvrage sur le scandale des pesticides, Printemps silencieux a entraîné l’interdiction du DDT aux États-Unis. Cette victoire historique d’un individu contre les lobbies de l’industrie chimique a déclenché au début des années 1960 la naissance du mouvement écologiste.
Printemps silencieux est aussi l’essai d’une écologue et d’une vulgarisatrice hors pair. En étudiant l’impact des pesticides sur le monde vivant, du sol aux rivières, des plantes aux animaux, et jusqu’à l’ADN, ce livre constitue l’exposition limpide, abordable par tous, d’une vision écologique du monde.
50 ans après sa conception, on redécouvre Printemps silencieux au moment où l’on commence à s’intéresser, en France, à la philosophie de l’écologie. « Ce n’est pas moi, c’est Rachel Carson qui a inventé l’écologie profonde », affirme en effet le philosophe norvégien Arne Næss.
Vendu à plus de 2 000 000 d’exemplaires, traduit en 16 langues, Printemps silencieux n’est pas seulement un best-seller : c’est un monument de l’histoire culturelle et sociale du XXe siècle. Point de référence difficilement contournable de l’histoire de l’écologie, cet ouvrage fait partie de la bibliothèque de l’honnête homme.
2019 [2009] - 352 pages - 11 ×17 cm - 12 € - ISBN : 978-2-918490-999
Marin SCHAFFNER
Collection « Le monde qui vient »
Pour ses 10 ans, Wildproject propose une synthèse pédagogique et accessible des grands enjeux de l’écologie.
Depuis une décennie environ, une scène des pensées de l’écologie a émergé en langue française.
Comment décrire et nommer ce nouveau continent à la croisée des luttes, des arts et des sciences ? À quelles œuvres collectives ses acteurs sont-ils en train de donner vie ? Quelles sont les grandes dynamiques en cours ? Comment l’écologie transforme-t-elle nos façons de penser et d’agir ?
Une sélection d’auteurs, mais aussi de journalistes, éditeurs, traducteurs, libraires, militants… répond à ces questions.
2019 - 180 pages - 13 × 20 cm - 15 € - ISBN : 978-2-918-490-784
Collection « Petite bibliothèque d’écologie populaire »
Bien plus qu’un ebook, le livre peut être un support écologiquement vertueux.
Mais depuis vingt ans, l’objet livre et ses usages se sont industrialisés et mondialisés – concentration du monde de l’édition, délocalisation des impressions, essor du numérique…
Cet objet manufacturé séculaire se retrouve aujourd’hui pris en tenaille entre des logiques artisanales et industrielles.
Face aux exigences nouvelles des lecteurs, des questions inédites émergent. Sur quels piliers voulons-nous construire la chaîne du livre de demain ?
Entretiens, écofictions et manifestes : des libraires, des éditeurs, des auteurs et des forestiers invitent à imaginer le livre de l’après-pétrole.
2020 - 112 pages - 11 ×17 cm - 9 € - ISBN : 978-2-918490-968
Contact : Baptiste LANASPEZE
Responsable : Marin SHAFFNER
91 bd Anfa, 14e étage
20600 Casablanca
Morocco
Tél: +212 522 20 93 14 / +212 522 20 92 68
www.lefennec.com
In 1987, there were few publishing houses in Morocco. The book market was flooded with books in French, from France, and in Arabic, from Egypt and Lebanon. It was difficult for readers to identify with them. Les Éditions du Fennec were created to fill this gap.
It is a small structure which does only publishing in Arabic and French. They release from 15 to 20 titles a year, with an average print run between 2 000 and 3 000 copies. As for the paperback edition, the average print run is between 5 000 and 10 000 copies.
In order to make reading accessible to the greatest number, and taking into account Moroccan readership’s purchasing power, les Éditions du Fennec manufactures and sells at the lowest price books of quality.
Yasmina RHELJARI
It is said that Alexander the Great, as he deployed his immense army in a Kashmir meadow, set up camp before fighting. At dawn, a carpet of mauve flowers covered the ground even under the horses’ hooves. Faced with this dire omen, the 120,000 soldiers refused to fight and Alexander the Great, for the first time, had to bow to the victorious rudder. Ahraz, the founder of Al Kanz, harnessing the powers of these precious pistils, succeeds in becoming one of the richest businessmen in the country. The Mountain Orphan has come a long way, but it’s time for him to pass the torch. Who will be the one who will be chosen for the position of president of Al Kanz? Will the Safran Al Kanz become the best in the world? It is in La Safranière, a small village hidden in the Atlas Mountains where Ahraz was born that all these questions will be clarified, whatever the cost!
Yasmina RHELJARI runs a training firm in Rabat, her first novel “Le diner de trop” appeared in 2018. She is also a columnist at Vie Eco.
2020 - 280 pages - 13 x 20,5 cm - 98 DH / 12 € - ISBN : 978-9920-755-17-7
Ahmed AMENSOUR
The novel talks about a play written by a theater artist for a woman called Zahra, who is an activist of the February 20 Movement, and in the end, the latter will not play that role; Because she initially thought that the role was written for her, then she discovers that he wrote for another woman and wants to attribute it to her.
“I have never accepted to despair on the pretext of the futility of studying in a country teeming with the unemployed. Instinctively and decisively, I rejected the position of the unemployed whose fate depends on state policy.”
The disabled person who has no job but to participate in sit-ins and demonstrations that the graduate armies are fighting in the capital, in front of Parliament and in the streets of the capital.
Mohamed AMANSOUR is a novelist, critic, and university professor at the Faculty of Arts in Meknes. His novel experience belongs to the style of the new novel in Morocco, which in its experimental strategy deviates from the traditional novel. He has published several critical books, as well as two novels “Al Mouktafiaa” in 2004 and “Tears of Bacchus” in 2010, in addition to two collections of stories.
2019 - 160 pages - 13 x 20,5 cm - 85 DH / 13 € - ISBN : 978-9920-755-18-4
Yousouf AMINE ELALAMY
Inconsolable, a quarter of a century after the death of his father, the author decides to resuscitate him. He unearths his past to invent a future for it and put it back into the world. In his quest for a father, he does not hesitate to assume his identity, to wear his face as one wears a mask that reveals more than it hides. Here we find the author’s taste for reversals and invention, he who does not hesitate to predict the past and remember the future. Carried by a subtle writing, at the same time soft and biting, Even not dead is a captivating, moving, overwhelming story; a snub to death and a hymn to life.
Moroccan writer and artist Youssouf AMINE ELALAMY is the author of several novels: Un Marocain à New York, Les Clandestins (Grand Atlas Prize and Le Plaisir de Lire Prize), Paris mon bled, Miniatures, Oussama mon amour, Amour nomade; Funny spring. French-speaking author, he published in 2005 Tqarqib Ennab, a book in Darija (Moroccan Arabic) and in 1999 obtained the Prize for the best travelogue awarded by the British Council International for his writings in English. His books are translated into several languages.
“C’est beau la guerre” by Youssouf Amine Elalamy, has just been selected among the 10 finalist works of the 2020 edition of the Prix des 5 Continents de la Francophonie.
2018 - 114 pages - 13 x 20,5 cm - 80 DH / 13 € - ISBN : 978-9954-1-6831-8
Contact : Layla CHAOUNI
rue 544 – porte 92
Quinzambougou
Bamako
Mali
Tél: +223 20 22 40 79
www.caurislivres.com
For twenty years, Cauris books, founded by Kadiatou Konaré, has promoted modern and dynamic African publishing by offering various books (French and national languages) on Mali and Africa: cultural and tourist guides, reference works, general literature and children’s documentaries.
Its innovative editorial policy highlights thematic collections, the most emblematic of which are:
Françoise KERISEL ; Isabelle CALIN (illustratrice)
Il y a très longtemps, la belle reine Makeda dirigeait le royaume de Saba, dans l’Est de l’Afrique. Les contes et les textes sacrés parlent de cette souveraine légendaire qui a donné naissance à Ménélik, le premier roi d’Éthiopie.
Françoise Kerisel est un autrice d’ouvrages illustrés, passionnée par les légendes et la philosophie, elle s’est lancée dans des études de lettres classiques. En collaboration avec des illustrateurs très différents, ses textes ont notamment été publiés par Magnard Jeunesse, Didier jeunesse et Desclée de Brouwer.
Septembre 2019 - 32 pages - 20 X 22,5 cm - 7 € ; 4 000 FCFA - ISBN : 978-99952-60-47-7
Collection “Lucy”
Documentaire illustré
Public : 7-11 ans
Langue : français
Alpha Oumar KONARE ; Adame BA KONARE
Restituer près de deux mille ans d’histoire relève d’une véritable gageure. C’est pourtant cette entreprise colossale qu’Alpha Oumar et Adame Ba Konaré ont menée dans cette deuxième édition rénovée et prolongée des grandes dates du Mali.
Sous forme de repères datés et sur la basse de l’événement strict, cet ouvrage unique relate les faits autant qu’il éclaire et instruit. La riche iconographie qui l’accompagne en fait un véritable outil pédagogique, agréable à parcourir et précieux à la fois pour le chercheur et pour le grand public.
Alpha Oumar Konaré est professeur en archéologie, homme d’Etat – président de la république du Mali de 1992 à 2002, président de la Commission de l’Union africaine de 2003 à 2008 –, il est coauteur avec Adame Ba Konaré des Grandes dates du Mali, dont la première édition a été publiée en 1983 aux Editions-Imprimeries du Mali.
Adame Ba Konaré est professeure, elle a enseigné pendant presque 20 ans l’histoire de l’Afrique au Sud du Sahara à l’Ecole normale supérieure de Bamako. Féministe engagée, militante des Droits de l’homme, elle est auteure de nombreux ouvrages.
Septembre 2019 - 480 pages - 32,3 x 21,7 cm - 30 000 FCFA ; 49 € - ISBN : 978-99952-60-28-6
Genre : histoire
Langue : français
Reliure : cartonné
Adrienne YABOUZA
Les coépouses Ndongo Passy et Grekpoubou s’aiment comme deux sœurs, unies pour le pire et pour le meilleur. A la mort de leur mari, face au mensonge et à l’injustice, elles engagent une lutte pied à pied avec le destin.
Dans un style mordant, Adrienne Yabouza emprunte à la rue de Bangui ses mots les plus colorés pour raconter la vie en dents de scie de deux femmes de caractère, généreuses et avisées.
Costarmoricaine d’adoption, Centrafricaine, Adrienne Yabouza écrit avec enthousiasme aussi bien pour les petits que pour les grands avec un style qui lui est si particulier : humour, franc-parler, néologismes savoureux … le tout empreint d’émotion et de sagesse.
Octobre 2015 - 168 pages - 11,5 x 19 cm - 14 € ; 7 500 FCFA - ISBN : 978-99952-60-29-3
Genre : roman
Langue : français
Contact : Kadiatou KONARÉ
The word “gashingo” in Kanuri means chameleon; it was chosen to represent our ability to publish in multiple languages.
Gashingo’s activities build on the premise that the development of African countries depends on the internal and external efficiency of their education systems. This prerequisite can only be fulfilled by establishing and maintaining a literate environment in the first languages already mastered by children before they enter school and shared in their home communities, and in the widely spoken, local or foreign languages.
Gashingo’s main activities are the production and sale of books; Gashingo also graciously supports the training of authors and the organisation of meetings and exchanges between the various actors of the book ecosystem at the national and regional levels.
Over the next few years, Gashingo intends to strengthen its base through a large production of both paper and digital books and the gradual establishment of its nation-wide network of bookstores. Regionally, the company intends to diversify its partnerships to play a pioneering role in the extension of projects such as DEELMA (“Projet de Développement de l’édition et des environnements lettrés multilingues en Afrique” from Septembre 2006 to April 2007) where it was the coordinating structure. The interconnection of Gashingo’s national distribution network with those of its regional partners will enable its products to be as widely distributed as possible. All of these activities are aimed at increasing Gashingo’s production capacity to make it competitive and eligible for the textbook market.
Kadri HAMADOU
Un album pour enfant illustré en couleur publié en bilingue (en français et en 5 langues nationales du Niger). Un livre sur l’handicap, la tolérance et le respect.
Kadri HAMADOU a embrassé la carrière de peintre après avoir abandonné les études universitaires en 1997. Ses toiles ont été exposées à Niamey, en France et en Côte d’Ivoire. Il est aussi bien illustrateur qu’auteur de textes.
Novembre 2010 - 24 pages - 20,5 X 19 cm - 2 500 FCFA - ISBN : 978-2-91960-701-3
Malam ADJI ZATOULOUR
Un roman en français qui retrace la vie d’un instituteur qui évolue dans le milieu rural. L’oeuvre fait ressortir les difficultés actuelles de l’enseignement et apporte des pistes de solutions.
Malam ADJI ZATOULOUR est né en 1952 à Goudoumaria, dans la région de Diffa au Niger. Sa carrière d’enseignant commença en juin 1974. Il fit valoir ses droits à la retraite en octobre 2006. Se sentant encore capable d’enseigner, il est présentement professeur de français, histoire et géographie au CES de Goudoumaria. Chevronné lecteur de la littérature, il décida de se lancer dans l’écriture.
Janvier 2015 - 132 pages - 13 X 17 cm - 5 000 FCFA - ISBN : 978-2-37235-025-9
Boubacar HAMA BEIDHI
Cet ouvrage présente des proverbes et des devinettes utilisés dans la vie de tous les jours. La maîtrise des proverbes traduit en effet chez l’individu son enracinement dans sa culture, dont il contribue à maintenir et à pérenniser la valeur. Ils sont utilisés pour rappeler, sous une forme imagée et lapidaire, les règles en vigueur d’une société nécessitant une grande mobilité d’esprit pour discerner, sous leur forme condensée, toute somme d’observation, d’expérience, d’humour.
Boubacar HAMA BEIDHI, conseiller pédagogique à la retraite, a consacré tout son temps à la recherche sur les traditions et l’histoire des Peuls. L’ensemble de ses textes publiés en France et au Niger constitue une vraie bibliothèque de référence, témoignage de la richesse de la culture nigérienne.
Avril 2017 - 172 pages - 16 X 24 cm - 7 500 FCFA - ISBN : 978-2-919607-16-7
Contact : Bako MALAM ABDOU
49 Al-Makhzan St. Omranya
Giza
Egypt
Tél: +(20) 1110787870
www.sefsafa.net/en
Sefsafa Publishing established in 2009, since then Sefsafa has published more than 200 titles and organized many activities proved to be one of the most active small cultural entities in Egypt.
Sefsafa Publishing translated more than 50 titles (fiction & non-fiction) from 18 languages including: Irish, Slovak, German, English, French...
We like to describe ourselves as a progressive publisher, supporting the freedom of publishing and ideas of “Enlightenment”.
One of our non-fiction titles: Temptation of Absolute Power won a prize (the Ahmed Bhaa El-Din prize) in 2010, and one of our novels Al-Hareem won the Cairo International Book Fair award for best novel in 2015.
Sefsafa distributes through the independent bookstores in Egypt and Arab countries, also through Arab and international book fairs.
Contact : Mohamed EL-BAALY
28 avenue des F.A.R., 5ème étage, app. 59
20000 Casablanca
Morocco
Tél: +212 5 22 29 68 48
www.etlettres.com
Since 2014, En toutes lettres is specialised in the publication of essays by writers, researchers and journalists. Our books address societal issues related to Morocco, by exposing the situation on the ground, as well as making the work of researchers and academics accessible to the general, non-specialised public. They contribute to the dissemination of discussions and critical thinking. This aim is achieved through five collections: ‘Les Presses de l’Université Citoyenne’, ‘Enquêtes’, ‘Les Questions qui fâchent’, ‘Droit et Citoyenneté’, et ‘Traduction’. En toutes lettres also spearheads Openchabab, a training project for emerging journalists and civil society leaders, bound to become future authors espousing humanist creeds and investigative reporting.
To read:
*« Au Maghreb, il y a urgence à structurer le secteur du livre », Kenza Sefrioui, Le Monde Afrique, 8 February, 2019
*“A Moroccan Publisher Reflects on the Struggles Independent Presses Face”, Kenza Sefrioui, Al-Fanar Media, 10 January, 2019
Fadma AÏT MOUS et Driss KSIKES
Collection “Les Presses de l’Université Citoyenne” / Prix Grand Atlas 2015 et Prix Grand Atlas des étudiants 2015
Depuis les soulèvements de rue en 2011, les peuples attendent des intellectuels qu’ils les aident à mieux s’orienter dans la sphère publique. Au Maroc, quinze penseurs, ayant en commun une éthique de chercheurs et restant en interaction avec la société, livrent le fond de leurs pensées, puisant dans les héritages humanistes et analysant les réalités politiques et sociales.
2014 - 380 pages - 14 x 20,5 cm - 95 DH / 20 € - ISBN : 978-9954-33-164-4
Hicham HOUDAÏFA
Collection “Enquêtes” / Prix spécial du jury du Prix Grand Atlas 2017
Filières des études islamiques à l’Université, parcours de salafistes, problématique de l’enseignement religieux à l’école, quartiers marginalisés en proie à la délinquance, niqab… À travers huit enquêtes et reportages, Hicham Houdaïfa éclaire la banalisation de l’extrémisme religieux dans la société marocaine.
2017 - 94 pages - 14 x 20,5 cm - 65 DH / 13 € - ISBN : 978-9954-39-363-5
Asma LAMRABET
Prix Grand Atlas 2017
Voile, polygamie, égalité dans l’héritage… Asma Lamrabet fait l’inventaire des discriminations imposées aux femmes au nom de l’islam. Elle démontre que la plupart des interprétations médiévales classiques, produit de leur milieu social et culturel, se sont construites à la marge et parfois à l’encontre du Coran, porteur d’une vision beaucoup plus égalitaire et ouverte.
2017 – 214 pages – 14 x 20,5 cm – 95 DH / 20 € – ISBN : 978-9954-39-271-3
Contact : Kenza SEFRIOUI
Wanfield Hall - Woodcock Heath
Kingstone - Uttoxeter
Staffordshire, ST14 8QRT
United Kingdom
Tél: +44 (0)1650652370
www.victorinapress.com
Victorina Press is an independent publishing house in the West Midlands, UK. Established in 2017 by Consuelo Rivera-Fuentes, a Chilean-British Teacher of EFL, poet and writer of short stories, MA in Sociology and Women’s Studies, PhD in Women’s Studies and MA in Publishing. She chose to name her press “Victorina Press” to honour her mother who passed her love for reading and literature on to all her six children.
To achieve her mission of publishing great and inspirational books as well as to publish local authors in Spanish and English, Victorina Press follows principles of Bibliodiversity.
Listen here the conversation with Consuelo Rivera-Fuentes, by Christopher Fielden (July 2020).
Contact : Consuelo RIVERA-FUENTES
Discover publishers’ backgrounds, get to know their work and their publications, and listen to the voice of independent publishers… by reading the exclusive publishers portraits in this section!
In partnership with the online magazine ActuaLitté, interviews with publishers member of the Alliance are regularly added here. Explore the interviews:
* Élodie Comtois (Écosociété publishers in Québec),
* Samar Haddad (Atlas Publishing in Syria),
* Marie Michèle Razafintsalama (Jeunes malgaches in Madagascar),
* Constanza Brunet (Marea Editorial in Argentina),
* Antoinette Koleva (KX Critique & Humanism in Bulgaria),
* Karine Joseph (Sirocco in Morocco),
* Colleen Higgs (Modjaji Books in South Africa),
* François Nkémé (Proximité in Cameroon),
* Aliou Sow (Ganndal, Guinea Conakry),
* Ritu Menon (Women Unlimited in India).
* Ivana Jinkings (Boitempo in Brazil),
* Sophie Bazin and Johary Ravaloson (Dodo vole in Madagascar),
* Dorota Hartwich (Format in Poland),
* Amanda Crocker (Between the Lines, Canada),
* Dieulermesson Petit Frère (LEGS Édition, Haiti),
* Corinne Fleury (Atelier des nomades, Mauritius),
* Abdulai Sila (Ku Si Mon, Guinea Bissau),
* Susan Hawthorne and Renate Klein (Spinifex Press, Australia),
* Dan Bomboko (Elondja, Democratic Republic of Congo).
BP E 5229
Bamako
Mali
Tél: +223 76 71 57 13 / 76 46 21 14
www.editionstombouctou.com
Éditions Tombouctou was co-founded in 2007 by the Malian writers Ibrahima Aya and Aida Mady Diallo. From the name of the famous city of knowledge and writing, it gives to authors and other writers the means to express their word towards the African continent and the whole world. It aims to produce and disseminate quality writing at affordable prices for the local market in particular, thus contributing to the fact that Mali and Africa are telling themselves and the world.
Éditions Tombouctou is the initiative of the “Rentrée littéraire du Mali”, the reference literary event in Mali, created in 2008, which celebrated its 10th anniversary in February 2018 and which hosts for some years between 40 and 50 foreign writers by edition.
Furthermore, since the break-up in 2012 of the security, institutional and identity crisis in Mali, Éditions Tombouctou has initiated several collective reflections that have resulted in the publication of reference books on this crisis and Mali: High voices for Timbuktu, Mali between doubts and hopes, Africa of secularisms, Contemporary Mali, Regionalization in Mali, Challenges of the reconstruction in Mali...
Albakaye Ousmane KOUNTA
Talfi, originaire de Tombouctou, rêve de sillonner le Sahara et de devenir un caravanier renommé et fortuné. Mais son père l’inscrit à l’école moderne. Talfi ne renonce pourtant pas. Ses études terminées, il rentre aussitôt au bercail. Commence alors une odyssée épique pleine de chants, de bravoure et d’amour.
2014 - 248 pages - 12 X 21 cm - 5 000 FCFA - ISBN : 978-99952-53-14-1
Paul-Marie TRAORE
S’amouracher de sa sœur au point de lui faire un enfant relève plutôt du grand scandale. Un jeune fonctionnaire talentueux, ignorant tout de sa vraie identité, mène une existence décousue. Les conquêtes et les enfants abandonnés se suivent. Mais les chemins se croisent. Alors le passé resurgit, brûlant, déchirant…
2016 - 216 pages - 12 X 21 cm - 5 000 FCFA - ISBN : 978-99952-53-26-4
Kabiné Bemba DIAKITE
Lobèle et Bata, employées d’une entreprise, se vouent une haine inaltérable pour un poste de secrétaire. Elles placent au centre de leur brûlant antagonisme Diarisso et Kariba, membres de la junte militaire qui régente le pays. Désormais, rien ne peut les arrêter, tout comme leurs protégées, jusqu’au dénouement tragique.
2016 - 216 pages - 12 X 21 cm - 5 000 FCFA - ISBN : 978-99952-53-27-1
Contact : Ibrahima AYA
København
2400 Copenhague
Denmark
Tél: (+45) 20 84 50 65
www.diyareketab.wordpress.com
Diyar-e Ketab is an independent publisher of literature in Persian language. Texts published by Diyar-e Ketab are uncensored and the purpose is to promote a culture of reading in Persian as well as create an open space for the literary and linguistic exchange about Iran and other subjects.
Diyar-e Ketab aims to assist Iranian authors in publishing their works and to promote understanding and appreciation of Persian culture and literature.
Masoud KADKHODAEE
In this novel, along with Ketayoun and Bahram and their young children, we leave Iran. Behind the borders of the homeland, we encounter with this family a variety of problems, the problems that we sometimes face and need to resolve. We evaluate our previous moral and historical boundaries with a fresh look.
282 pages - 130 DKK (17 €) - ISBN: 978-87-970588-0-0
Contact : Esfandiyar SANAYE
PO Box 105
Mission Beach
Queensland 4852
Australia
Tél: +61 418 506 645
www.spinifexpress.com.au
Spinifex is an independent feminist press publishing innovative and controversial feminist books with an optimistic edge. Spinifex, our namesake, is an Australian desert grass that holds the earth together. We publish broadly, with a focus on ecology, development, Indigenous and human rights issues in our non-fiction titles, and world stories in our fiction and poetry. We are also at the forefront of digital publishing, with many of our titles available as eBooks.
Spinifex is an Australian desert grass that holds the earth together.
Read here the interview with Susan Hawthorne and Renate Klein, published in partnership with ActuaLitté (June 25, 2018).
Merlinda BOBIS
1987. The Philippine government fights a total war against insurgency. The village of Iraya is militarised. The days are violent and the nights heavy with fireflies in the river where the dead are dumped. With her twelve-metre hair, Estrella, the Fish-Hair Woman, trawls corpses from the water that tastes of lemon grass. She falls in love with the Australian Tony McIntyre who disappears in the conflict. Ten years later, his son travels to Manila to find his father.
How much can the heart accommodate? Death and love, an enemy and a sweetheart, war and an impassioned serenade, and more. Only four chambers but with infinite space like memory, where there is room even for those whom we do not love.
Awards
Winner: 2014 Juan C. Laya Prize for Best Novel in a Foreign Language
Winner: 2013 Most Underrated Book Award
Finalist: 2013 Davitt Awards. Best Crime and Mystery Books by Australian Women
“As I was reading my thoughts kept turning to Wide Sargasso Sea. It shares with Jean Rhys’s masterpiece more than just a threat to topple into tragedy, but Fish-Hair Woman takes a wider view. It is a love story, a murder mystery, a story about family and a story about the impact of the kind of self-perpetuating government corruption that so often befalls a country in political turmoil. It’s ambitious and sprawling, and things could quickly go wrong. Fortunately, they don’t. Bobis is a talented, passionate writer who is unafraid of exploring the storytelling potential of the novel.”
–Tristan Foster, Verity LA
Published by Spinifex, co-edition with Anvil Press, Philippines; Translation into Spanish by JC Sáez Editor, Chile (2017).
2011 - 232 x 154 mm - 303 pp - AUD$29.95 - ISBN: 9781876756970
khulud kHAMIS
Jewellery designer, Maisoon, wants an ordinary extraordinary life, which isn’t easy for a tradition-defying, activist, Palestinian citizen of Israel, who refuses to be crushed by the feeling that she is an unwelcome guest in the land of her ancestors. Frustrated by the apathy of her boyfriend Ziyad and her father Majid—who want her to get on with her life and forget those in the Occupied Territories—she lashes out, only to discover her father isn’t the man she thought he was.
Raised a Christian, in a relationship with a Muslim man and enamoured with a Palestinian woman from the Occupied Territories, Maisoon must decide her own path.
khulud khamis unpacks the multiple layers of culture, religion, sexuality, politics, feminism and nationalism in the hope of gathering the fragmented pieces of the past and reclaiming the lost contiguity of being Palestinian.
—Samah Sabawi, Palestinian playwright and commentator
... khulud khamis has the rare gift of speaking directly to a reader’s soul; this radiant novel shows just what can happen when women challenge the limits of their world. —Sharon Olinka, author of The Good City
khulud khamis is a Palestinian feminist writer, born to a Slovak mother and a Palestinian father. She holds a Master’s degree in English Literature from the University of Haifa and works in the field of social change organizations. She is a member of the feminist organization Isha L’Isha – Haifa Feminist Center. She lives in Haifa with her daughter. This is her first novel.
Published by Spinifex Press; co-edition with New Internationalist UK; Italian translation FILA37 (2015); Turkish translation Gulduniya (2017).
2015 - 192 pp - ISBN: 9781742199009
Fiction
Susan HAWTHORNE
In a globalised world, megacorp publishing is all about numbers, about sameness, about following a formula based on the latest megasuccess. Each book is expected to pay for itself and all the externalities of publishing such as offices and CEO salaries.
It means that books which take off slowly but have long lives, the books that change social norms, are less likely to be published.
Independent publishers are seeking another way. A way of engagement with society and methods that reflect something important about the locale or the niche they inhabit. Independent and small publishers are like rare plants that pop up among the larger growth but add something different, perhaps they feed the soil, bring colour or scent into the world.
Bibliodiversity is a term invented by Chilean publishers in the 1990s as a way of envisioning a different kind of publishing. In this manifesto, Susan Hawthorne provides a scathing critique of the global publishing industry set against a visionary proposal for organic publishing. She looks at free speech and fair speech, at the environmental costs of mainstream publishing and at the promises and challenges of the move to digital.
Susan Hawthorne has worked in the book industry for more than 30 years as a writer, festival organiser, reviewer, editor, publisher and mentor. In 1991, she co-founded Spinifex Press with Renate Klein, after working for Penguin Australia for four years. She has written extensively about the industry, co-organised digital training for small and large publishers, taught Publishing Studies and Creative Writing, and has been an active member of peak bodies for publishers and writers. From 2011 to 2016, she was the English-language Coordinator for the International Alliance of Independent Publishers based in Paris. She is Adjunct Professor in the Writing Program at James Cook University and Publisher at Spinifex Press.
Bibliodiversity can be read as a manifesto for the defence and promotion of diversity in all its forms, but also as a master class in ethics.—JUAN CARLOS SÁEZ C., Director Gerente, JC Sáez Editor, Chile
This publication should be mandatory reading for anyone within the publishing industry.—MARY MASTERS, General Manager, Small Press Network, Australia
2014 - 104 pp - ISBN: 9781742199306
Non-Fiction
Rights: World. Published by Spinifex Press; Canadian rights sold to Fernwood Publishing; Translations into Arabic: December 2015, Tunisia, Éditions Med Ali, Arabic; Syria, Atlas Publishing, Arabic; Egypt, Elain Publishing, Arabic; Lebanon, Dar-Alfarabi and Arab Diffusion. French, 2016: France, Éditions Charles Léopold Mayer; Switzerland, éditions d’en bas; Benin, Éditions Ruisseaux d’Afrique; Mali, Éditions Jamana; Cameroun, Presses universitaires d’Afrique ; Spanish, 2017: Chile, JC Sáez; Mexico, Trilce Ediciones; Uruguay: Ediciones Trilce; also publishers in Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Bolivia. German, 2017, Verbrecher Verlag.
Contact : Susan HAWTHORNE
Responsable : Renate KLEIN
Rua de Santana, 198 Loja – Centro
Rio de Janeiro - RJ 20 230-261
Brazil
Tél: (+55) 21 2508-9517
www.contracapa.com.br
Founded in 1992 in Copacabana, the Contra Capa bookstore initiated its publishing activities in 1996. First based on the areas of interest of the bookstore itself, these activities have diversified and now include fine arts, photography, cinema, psychoanalysis, anthropology, economy, sociology, history, literary criticism and poetry. The main objective is to produce books that combine interdependence between text and pictures, in the light of the continuous technological changes related to producing and disseminating knowledge and information.
Fernando VELOSO, Sergio GUIMARÃES FERREIRA (orgs.)
Este importante livro mostra que é possível alcançar redução expressiva da violência armada, da insegurança e da criminalidade que aterrorizam a população de grandes áreas urbanas do Brasil. Seus autores mostram – com fatos e não vagos discursos – que isso não se trata de uma esperança insensata. Não apenas porque foi alcançado em Nova York, Boston, Bogotá e várias outras cidades do mundo, mas principalmente porque, no Brasil, reduziu-se a violência em lugares em que isso era mais improvável: no Jardim Ângela, bairro da periferia da cidade de São Paulo que chegou a ser considerado o bairro mais violento do mundo, e em Diadema, que deixou de ser em quatro anos a cidade mais violenta de São Paulo, passando a ocupar o 18º posto.
Se você não pretende se deixar levar pelo desencanto, pela frustração, pelo ceticismo e pela desesperança, leia este livro. Entenderá, com base em experiências reais, que é possível, sem ilusões voluntaristas, apelos messiânicos e excessos e abusos no exercício da autoridade do Estado, mostrar aos bandidos armados que essa é uma longa guerra de muitas batalhas, mas que, ao fim e ao cabo, eles não só não podem ganhá-la, como a estão perdendo – e a perderão.
2008 - 208 páginas - 16 x 23 cm - R$ 35,00 - ISBN: 978-85-7740-046-1
Lêdo IVO
Pinturas de Gonçalo IVO
Desenho de Gianguido BONFANTI
O poema narra a visão da infância guardada pela memória. Obra de perda e despedida, seus versos longos se desdobram como as ondas do mar alagoano. Música e imagem se fundem para exprimir uma reflexão sobre o sentido da existência, da qual as pinturas de Gonçalo Ivo não são comentário ou simples ilustração.
2008 - 64 páginas - 16,8 x 24,5 cm - R$ 38,00 - ISBN: 978-85-7740-040-9
Katia MACIEL (org.)
37 textos de teóricos e artistas que compõem, em suas inter-relações, amplo panorama sobre as novas situações de cinema, em que superfícies híbridas de luz e movimento se conjugam com a participação e a imersão dos espectadores. A introdução da organizadora define o título do livro.
2009 - 432 páginas - 16 x 23 cm - R$ 65,00 - ISBN: 978-85-7740-009-3
Contact : Araken GOMES RIBEIRO
International Alliance
of Independent Publishers
38 rue Saint-Sabin
75011 Paris - France