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The pain of cultivating the culture of book reading"Hello are you reading?" May just go down as a simple radio-call message for most people in Tanzania, where apparently the culture of reading is almost non-existence. Leonidas Mwijage, a former teacher, turned Author with six books under his printing belt and ten more in the pipeline happens to be the General Secretary of the Zonal Author Association.The Arusha-based writer, thinks the Government has a role to play to bring back the concept of book writing and readingBy Nyamanoko Bwire QUESTION: So there is an association for local authors? ANSWER: Yes, the Northern Zone Book Writers Association has been around since 1993, but was registered in 1995. Among its roles is to train both its members and local students. These training sessions are usually conducted in conjunction with UWAVITA, the union of Tanzania Book Writers. In 1998 we ran courses on story writing for female authors and since then we’ve been cultivating budding writers and artist illustrators in primary and secondary schools to boost aspiring students. Q: How many members have so far managed to have their books published? A: About seven, we have Asha Kunema from Tanga who has already written four books and Jumaa Musuazi who has published two books. He is also from Tanga. There is the old man, Marcell Lotto from Babati, who has written a book, B.A. Meena from Moshi with science books for children, Alodia Kamara who has completed a story book and myself with over six published works. Q: But how do authors survive by publishing books in a non responsive society which lacks reading culture? A: You see, for a long, long period of time books became scarce here. So people lost hope and the urge for reading. I think the Government is to be blamed for that since the state was the sole publisher and distributor but only focussed on text books, kicking the other genre under its rug. Mind you, there are inadequate libraries in the country I mean, if there are ward offices, why not ward libraries? Q: In other words, local writers are now giving up? A: Hardly the case, because being an author is a vocational call one can’t just sit around without writing, we continue publishing books hoping that, things will get better in the future. Personally, I have 10 other books in the pipeline, all being text books of different subjects and grade. They will be getting into the printing press as soon as I acquire enough capital for that. Q: So, capital is the major problem for most writers? A: We face many problems including high taxes in form of VAT, in fact, an author is forced to pay over five different taxes in publication, on retailing and every month you have to remit a percentage of book sales, mind you even booksellers are compelled to pay taxes on their stock of publications. We appeal to the Government to reduce this taxing burden so as to help fight illiteracy in the country. Q: And how are the books selling? A: Very slow, my own publications are yet to bring in the money because people don’t buy books and those who do, usually go for the usual titles or authors who they are familiar with. Readers are yet to be comfortable with new ideas as well,
because a book on "How to Organise Debate in Schools" which I wrote,
addresses a new concept. I have been a teacher for 13 years but never came
across any official guidelines on how to organise debates yet the book has
hardly created any impact.
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