About Us

Cassava Republic Press is obsessed with changing the way we think about African fiction.  We think that contemporary African writing should be rooted in African experience in all its diversity, whether set in filthy-yet-sexy megacities such as Lagos, in little-known rural communities, in the recent past or indeed the near future.  We also think the time has come to build a new body of African writing that links writers across different times and spaces, following the marvellous example of the African Writers Series in the past.

We’re based in Abuja, which is a bit like the English town Milton Keynes but set in the tropics.  It’s a great place to be, with a modern infrastructure, gorgeous landscapes outside the city and all corners of the continent only a few hours flight away.

We publish fiction, non-fiction and children’s books.  A lot of our non-fiction output will focus on socio-cultural and historical events .  We’re keen to ensure that history is understood as a set of questions forever to be addressed, rather simply as facts and dates.  We work hard to ensure that our children’s books are beautifully made, inspiring the young ones among us to develop a love of books from an early age.

More than anything, we try to make our books as affordable as possible, without any sacrifice of quality.  Our books are as nicely made as any books you might find anywhere on the planet.
Finally, apart from churning out books, we also organise writing workshops and school writers-in-residence programmes under our RAW (Reading And Writing) Initiative.

Under the direction of the publishers Bibi Bakare-Yusuf and Jeremy Weate, Cassava Republic is considered to be one of the most important new publishing houses in Africa. The design bible Monocle Magazine listed us as one of the top ten brands to look out for in 2009.  As we especially like Monocle, we’re quite chuffed about this.