Zukiswa Wanner floats Afro-centric publishing house

South African novelist, Zukiswa Wanner is venturing into publishing with the launch of Paivapo, her publishing company she hopes will capture the African market and make African literature available to Africans across the continent. Speaking in an interview with the Johannesburg Review of Books, Wanner, said “I’m going to be looking largely for fiction. With […]

South African novelist, Zukiswa Wanner is venturing into publishing with the launch of Paivapo, her publishing company she hopes will capture the African market and make African literature available to Africans across the continent.

Speaking in an interview with the Johannesburg Review of Books, Wanner, said “I’m going to be looking largely for fiction. With non-fiction I would be looking for something that would be easily marketable to the rest of the continent.”

Though she is launching the outfit with the republication of her novels, starting with The Madams and hopes to have a box set of her own books published by her imprint by December.

She is very open to publishing other writers, following in the footsteps of writers like Lola Shoneyin and Eghosa Immasuen who have recently set up publishing houses. 

“Funding permitting, I’m looking at publishing two books, three maximum, per year. What I’d like to do with those, my little fantasy, is to get the books translated into Portuguese and French for the Lusophone and Francophone markets. And then I’m going to market the hell out of our stories,” she said.

Wanner whose other bestselling books include Behind Every Successful Man (2008) the satirical non-fiction Maid in SA: 30 Ways to Leave Your Madam (2013) and London – Cape Town – Joburg, said she drew a lot from her dealings with her numerous publishers to channel this into her publishing company.

On the name of the publishing house, Paivapo, Wanner explains that it is a tribute to her Zimbabwean mother.

“When you are telling a tale in Shona, you begin with ‘paivapo’, which is the equivalent of ‘once upon a time’, and then the kids respond ‘dzepfunde’. That was a little nod to my mom. Our world is pretty patriarchal, and I get into spaces where people say ‘Zukiswa Wanner is a South African writer’, which I am, because my dad is South African, but people also forget that my mom is Zimbabwean,”