By IPS Correspondents
NAIROBI, Jun 23 1998 (IPS)

Judging from the turnout at this year’s Pan African Children’s Book Fair, Africa’s premier showcase for children’s literature, is losing its lustre.

Top Kenyan publishers stayed away from the fair, held June 2-7 in Nairobi, due to a disagreement with organisers – which robbed robbing visitors of the chance to see the best of Africa’s published works. According to some critics the fair, first held in 1992, has deteriorated steadily over the years before this month’s mediocre show.

“It’s a shame that visiting publishers witnessed trivial issues – that could have been solved amicably between the exhibitors and the organisers – escalating to such heights,” said Omulu Okatch, the Managing Director of Future Publishers, which stayed away from the fair.

The Kenyan publishing community boycotted the book fair to protest against the introduction of both exhibition and entrance fees. This was the first time fees were introduced since the fair’s beginning six years ago.

Mary H. Bugembe, the PACBF’s coordinator, said that the fees were necessary this year, because unlike in the past, the organisers did not receive adequate funding from the donors. Besides, Bugembe said, “there is nothing for free in this world”.

Top publishers who stayed away included The East African Educational Publishers (EAEP), the most successful book publishers in Kenya, and Macmillan (Kenya) Ltd, another publishing powerhouse in the region.

“It’s unfair to charge people even before they’ve seen what you’re actually offering,” said Oden’g Kajuan’g, an editor with EAEP.

Kenyan publishers believed that the entrance fee would affect attendance to the event, a view echoed by Humphrey Njomba. “The 100 Kenyan Shillings fee introduced at the entrance was the surest way of telling Kenyans to stay away from the fair,” said Njomba, who was shopping for books for a primary school in Malindi, a coastal town 600 kms south west of Nairobi.

The internationally-recognised annual fair provides authors and publishers from across Africa and Europe with a forum where they can meet children, teachers, parents and entrepreneurs. More than 15 African countries participated in the event, and there were exhibitors from Turkey, Iran and The Netherlands.

Foreign publishers profited from their Kenyan counterpart’s boycott with several reporting booming business. FEMWRITE, a Ugandan Women Writers Association, which offered as much as a 20 percent discount on a number of books and other publications, cleared their entire stock. “We got more than we had bargained for,” said Mary Karooro Okurut, the association’s chairperson.

Surat Book Publishers from Turkey also was a crowd-puller, and Mehmet Gull attributed the success to the price and quality of the books on show. “We’re offering almost the same price with the locally-based publishers whose books are poorly printed and packaged,” Gull said.

The fair this year offered a variety of cultural shows – song, dance, fine, art, reading competitions, among other events – which school children found entertaining, since many could not afford the books.

” The 1998 fair was unique… actually, most of us went to watch the dances and fashion shows,” said 13 year-old Cynthia Kariuki, a student at a city primary school.

The fair’s theme, ‘Book Trade and Promotion’, also struck a chord in this East African nation where reading is not a top priority for the majority of Kenyans, 85 percent of whom live in the rural areas.

“Poverty is prevalent and the cost of living is too high for most, and more so for low-income groups. All these factors are not conducive to reading; consequently, one finds that the purchase of books is low,” said Njoroge Muriuki, the bookshop manager at Nairobi University.

“The high cost of books further aggravates the situation… only textbooks are bought,” added Muriuki, who presented the keynote address at the fair.

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