and there is a keen sense of collectivity. Its content can be frightening, and it can
threaten to separate the reader from society. ‘If the act of reading becomes a solitary act,
and if those who practise it are treated as “whites” it is because it also symbolises a
certain power, that which comes from appropriating the foreign culture’ (Traoré 1987:5).
So the book may well be perceived as a means of social advancement and as a tool for
learning rather than as a means of escape and enjoyment.
Youth literature began at the time of the greatest social change. With decolonisation
came modernisation, a rural exodus and its corollary urbanisation, the disruption of
traditional structures and values, and variable access to education. Children’s books
can only flourish in the right economic conditions; books which do not generate large
profits are not a priority. Today, there are few places, such as libraries, where books can
be read without charge (although these are increasing). But the most significant element
remains the degree to which the child has access to the French language, which
depends on the location, literacy, education, social situation and country. In the
majority of cases, the first contact with French would be at the elementary school, at
about 6 to 7-years-old. But despite this, when books were available, the thirst to read
shown by the young was remarkable.
The first real writing for children, at the beginning of the 1970s, came largely from a
handful of famous publishing houses: Nouvelles Editions Africaines of Senegal, the Ivory
Coast and Togo, Les Editions Ceda of the Ivory Coast, St Paul in Zaire, Clé in Cameroon,
Presence Africaine in Paris and Senegal, the Ivory Coast, Cameroon, and Zaïre. They
produced a small but significant number of publications, especially picture books and
tales.
Today, the picture is much the same—a small number of countries produce the
majority of titles. In 1994, a glance at the catalogues shows that the publishing leap
between 1975 and 1985 has been followed by stagnation, caused by the fragility of the
publishing houses, by the price of books being more than ever out of reach for families,
by the unequal promotion of reading, by the lack of distribution structures and perhaps
by a lack of will to write and illustrate for children. There are, however, some new trends.
New publishers have emerged, with new publishing strategies—cooperatives, self-
publishing, co-publishing ventures using public or private finance—often motivated to
produce an affordable, truly local product.
The survey, Livres Africains pour la Jeunesse (1994) initiated by La Joie par les Livres,
uses the following criteria: books must have been designed for children, but not be
schoolbooks; they must either have been published by African countries or have an
African author and/or illustrator, or derive from the traditional African oral heritage.
The limited number of these works (about 300), together with the diverse origins of their
authors, publishers, and where they were printed underlines the heterogeneous
character of African literature for children. The survey lists forty-two picture books, nine
comic books, twenty-three illustrated stories, seventy-two novels, fifteen books of poetry,
forty-one illustrated tales, forty-two books of tales, and sixty works of non-fiction. To
these must be added a very small number of works in national languages (for example in
Senegal, Mali and Zaïre) which have very limited distribution, and those published by
missionary organisations, whose numbers are not known precisely.
AFRICA 793