”I want to bring Black female writers into the spotlight“

When you and Clive Allison co-founded the publishing house Allison and Busby in 1967, you were the UK’s youngest publisher and first ever black woman. How was it, working  in publishing back then?

I was in my early twenties when I started a publishing house with my business partner Clive Allison. He was a white man and I was a black woman. To us it was no big deal but we were breaking rules and conventions. Among the press cuttings I have from back then, is one from a national newspaper with a headline that said “Girl from Ghana goes into Publishing”. It seemed to be basically implying: “Look, an African woman can read!”

Back in those days, prejudice was everywhere. In South Africa, for instance, I have been told that libraries banned Allison and Busby books simply because we were an interracial team. That was the era: every country had its own examples of black people not being treated equally. 

But it didn’t hold you back?

I always felt that you have to do what you believe in. Clive Allison and I had day jobs with other publishers, and I freelanced for the BBC Africa service, and we spent our evenings and weekends working for our own publishing house, eventually basing our office in a friend’s flat in Soho, London. We published poetry in cheap editions that young people like us could afford, we published good books that had gone out of print and we discovered new writers. It was a very international list – and quite unpredictable and maverick.

“My official curriculum did not feature any black writers, so I found them for myself” 

How were black lives, and especially female black lives, portrayed in fiction at the time?

Mostly they were simply absent. I was born in Ghana, but my education was in Britain, and I read English at London University. My official curriculum did not feature any black writers, so I found them for myself. I spent a lot of time in secondhand bookshops searching. After I left university, I discovered writers such as Toni Morrison, a writer who once said: “If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”

That was in the 1970s and black women writers were emerging, especially in the US, but you could name them on the fingers of hand: Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, Terry McMillan. Reviews of new black women writers tended to compare them with these names, as if all Black writing had to be in the style of (for example) Walker or Angelou. Meanwhile, on the African continent, pioneering women writers such as Flora Nwapa and Efua Sutherland came on the scene. 

Was it in the spirit of “if there’s a book you want to read… then you must write it” that you created “Daughters of Africa” in 1992?

My aim was to shine a light on talented women who were often unknown. The rationale behind “Daughters of Africa”, which spanned from ancient Egypt to the present, was to show that writing from a black female perspective didn't just arrive on the scene in the 1970s-1990s. Black women have been creative for generations, for centuries. There’s a long history of traditional poetry, as well as orature (oral literature).

Daughters of Africa is often referred to as a landmark. Did you see it spur on a new generation of writers?

There are writers in the second volume who said that they only became writers after reading the first volume! One contributor, Edwige-Renée Dro from Côte d’Ivoire, said that when she started out most African writers she heard of seemed to be Anglophone and Nigerian, so she pretended to be from Nigeria hoping to get her work published in England. Encountering “Daughters of Africa” restored her self-confidence and encouraged her to write from her own perspective and not feel as if she had to fit some template. Both volumes include people from a wide range of places, of course from Africa, America and Britain, but also from Turkey, Australia, Brazil, Cuba and a whole list of others.

“All sorts of stereotypes affected the publishing industry’s treatment of all black writers, not just women”

Did this multiplicity of voices challenge the idea that there was a singular black African story?

All sorts of stereotypes affected the publishing industry’s treatment of all black writers, not just women. Some tried to find an agent, only to hear, “Sorry, we've already got a black writer.” Andrea Levy, the British writer who was born in London to Jamaican parents, once told me that a potential agent asked if she’d done anything famous or illegal! In other words, you needed the right backstory to get attention - it wasn’t enough to have written a good book. 

And recently you published the new anthology, “New Daughters of Africa”. 

The new edition is a completely different book. None of the writers are duplicated. I sent thousands of emails approaching potential contributors to the new volume; and some of those I contacted suggested others to include: it was a kind of a ripple effect. Impressively, everyone waived their fee because they wanted to be a part of the project. So we were able to start The Margaret Busby "New Daughters of Africa" Award, a collaboration between the contributors, me as editor, the publishers, and SOAS, London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, to enable a female student from Africa to do a free course there, to earn an MA.

The first award winner was Idza Luhumyo from Kenya, who went on to win the 2022 Caine Prize For African Writing. This shows how writers form part of a chain, supporting and influencing each other. These connections are what I like most about both of the anthologies, which contain friendships, inspirations and even family relationships. The second volume includes Zadie Smith and her mother, Yvonne Bailey Smith, who used to be a family therapist and is now a writer too.

How important was it for you to represent a range of different nationalities, eras, and styles in the new edition?

Space was limited and there was so much to choose from. I joke that my book could even double as a doorstop or offensive weapon because it is so heavy! But actually, the book could easily be three times as long. In the end, I'm shining a light on these women – but there are many more out there that the reader can discover. I felt it was important for me to offer a historical range of pieces, but would never decline writers from a specific country on the grounds that we already have enough from there.

I faced constraints, like the fact I don’t speak every language of the original contributions to the book - which includes many African languages - so I’m reliant on translators. And there were surprises: Some novelists replied to my email of invitation by sending poetry! It was a serendipitous process. It was exciting to see how often pieces resonated with each other. It wasn’t planned that way, but it turns out that the book contains lots of inter-connecting themes. 

“African writers often think that they need to be validated by being published in London or New York” 

The new volume came out in 2019, more than a quarter of a century after the first edition. Has publishing shifted in the meanwhile or are people just playing lip service to diversity?

Today you hear words such as “diversity” and “inclusivity” a lot in publishing, partly reflecting the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. There are many good publishers, especially small independent ones, who publish books simply  because they are good, regardless of who wrote them. Some other publishing houses are trying to keep up with the trend of including more diverse writers. Certain books are being taken on because they tick boxes rather than it also being important for the books to be as good as possible.

Of course, publishers should be aware of who they are taking on – but you shouldn’t simply lower the bar to patronise writers from certain groups. I’d like to see the industry employ people with more diverse perspectives and experiences. I met a South African woman at the London Book Fair a few years ago and she said that I was the reason she went into publishing. I was really touched that not just writers inspire each other, but also publishers. 

Is there a trend towards publishing books by black authors who live in the West as opposed to African authors? 

There is an imbalance. I would like to see the day when there are enough African publisher companies on the African continent, and also in the Caribbean, who could nurture local writers. Maybe we need more collaboration to ease international distribution. African writers often think that they need to be validated by being published in London or New York. Some writers have always been treated as if they are on the margins and so feel as if they have to migrate to the centre. But we can be our own centre. 

Are you planning a third edition of “Daughters of Africa”? 

I hope for a time when it is no longer necessary to have any kind of anthology with a defining framework: Good books will be published by any publisher, regardless of their origin or identity. But we haven’t reached that point yet. For the time being, I would like to do another anthology. So many people still haven't got the attention they deserve -  living writers as well as previous generations who've been overlooked. There is such a rich pool to choose from.

Interview by Jess Smee

_{„Daughters of Africa“. Herausgegeben von Margaret Busby. Jonathan Cape, London, 1992.
„New Daughters of Africa“. Herausgegeben von Margaret Busby. Myriad Editions, Brighton and Hove, 2019.
„Neue Töchter Afrikas“. Herausgegeben von Christa Morgenrath und Eva Wernecke. Unrast Verlag, Münster, 2023.}

„Daughters of Africa“. Herausgegeben von Margaret Busby. Jonathan Cape, London, 1992.
„New Daughters of Africa“. Herausgegeben von Margaret Busby. Myriad Editions, Brighton and Hove, 2019.
„Neue Töchter Afrikas“. Herausgegeben von Christa Morgenrath und Eva Wernecke. Unrast Verlag, Münster, 2023.

Interview by Jess Smee.