In 1962, a Nigerian-born editor named Chinua Achebe convinced the London publisher Heinemann to launch a new imprint: the African Writers Series. Over the next four decades, the Series published more than 300 titles, creating the canon of modern African literature almost from scratch.
The First Title: Things Fall Apart
Achebe's own Things Fall Apart (1958, AWS #1) was the model. Set in pre-colonial Igboland, it told the story of colonization from inside the colonized community — a perspective that had never appeared in English-language fiction before. It has since sold over 20 million copies and been translated into more than 60 languages.
The Writers the Series Made
The AWS launched Ngugi wa Thiong'o (Weep Not, Child), Wole Soyinka (Nobel 1986), Buchi Emecheta, Ama Ata Aidoo, and Bessie Head among many others. Each found their first international audience through the distinctive orange-spined paperbacks.
Legacy and Controversy
The Series has been critiqued for institutionalizing African literature through a British publishing framework — but it undeniably created the global audience for African writing. Today, initiatives like Cassava Republic Press and Farafina Books continue the work of publishing African voices for global readers.
Explore African literature on the Genesis of Literary world map.