My friend Robert Molteno, who has died aged 79, was the editorial director of Zed Books for 27 years and helped build its reputation as the pre-eminent radical academic publisher concerned with the developing world.
Robert combined a sharp analysis of current issues with a commitment to scholars from the global south, seeking out authors whose work and ideas were ignored by mainstream publishers. The books he made available in English for the first time included Nawal El Saadawi’s The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World (1980), which drew attention to the widespread practice of female genital mutilation, and her bestselling novel, Woman at Point Zero (1983).
