In the past month, my email has served up two contrasting examples of the state of scholarly publishing in African countries. The one was an invitation to celebrate the centenary of South Africa’s Wits University Press. The other, an academic report on the demise of Nigerian university presses. Between these two extremes, there are only a few functioning African university presses in 2022 – a recent survey found only 15 active presses out of 52 that claim to still be working.
The situation is similar in other universities in the global South, such as in India and Latin America, where most university presses function as printers rather than publishers. All the more reason, then, to celebrate the longevity – and significance – of a publisher like Wits University Press.
