I am so happy to be here today. To be on this stage and to share the Abantu vision. Before I begin, I want to say thank you, thank you for inviting m… - Bibi Bakare-Yusuf

What I am interested in is how we create what I am calling the African archival future which will then form part of a global archive. Publishing for me is therefore essentially the work of archival creation and a potential tool of power and control, a tool that helps to shape how we view ourselves and make sense of the world.

The African literary space is most likely the only artefact of culture in this neo-colonial moment that has yet to cut loose from its colonial mooring. And the reason is simply, it still relies on the colonial centres for its aesthetics, market, economics, relevance, affirmation and symbolic legitimacy.

It is publishers who take stories from their raw state and turn them into food, food that may nourish or poison us. We have to talk about and acknowledge the unseen infrastructure that ensures that books are in circulation, because books, unlike print media or blogs, offer us some of the densest, extended, and interpretive conversations we can have about the world around us.