We spend a lot of time praising our writers (and rightly so!) but it's equally important to shine a light on the incredible people working behind the scenes to amplify our stories. This year, on International Women’s Day, we're celebrating pioneering women in African publishing.

Bios are listed from left to right, top to bottom.

Margaret Busby

Margaret Yvonne Busby, CBE, Hon. FRSL, also titled Nana Akua Ackon, is a Ghanaian-born publisher, editor, writer and broadcaster, resident in the UK. She was Britain's youngest and first black female book publisher when in the 1960s she co-founded with Clive Allison the London-based publishing house Allison and Busby. In 1992, Busby compiled Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and Writings by Women of African Descent. In 2019 she edited a follow-up volume titled New Daughters of Africa. Read more.

Bibi Bakare-Yusuf

Bibi Bakare-Yusuf Hon. FRSL is a Nigerian academic, writer and editor from Lagos, Nigeria. She co-founded the publishing company Cassava Republic Press in 2006. Cassava Republic Press was created with a focus on affordability, the need to find and develop local talent, and to publish African writers too often celebrated only in Europe and America. In 2014, an associated imprint called Ankara Press was launched, with titles available in digital form as e-books, aiming to publish "a new kind of romance" that challenges conventional stereotypes, reflecting the lives and aspirations of modern African women and men. Read more.

Goretti Kyomuhendo

Goretti Kyomuhendo is a Ugandan novelist and literary activist. She was a founding member and the first Programmes Coordinator for FEMRITE - Uganda Women Writers' Association, and she later founded the African Writers Trust (AWT) in an effort to "coordinate and bring together African writers in the Diaspora and writers on the continent to promote sharing of skills and other resources, and to foster knowledge and learning between the two groups.” Kyomuhendo has also written The Essential Handbook For African Creative Writers, published by African Writers Press in 2013. Read more.

Lola Shoneyin

Lola Shoneyin is an award winning British Nigerian author and poet who was named Africa Literary Person of the Year in 2017. Shoneyin founded the largest book festival in Africa, Ake Festival. She is also the creative director of the new Kaduna Book and Arts Festival. Shoneyin also runs the publishing imprint and bookshop Ouida Books in Nigeria and she founded the Book Buzz Foundation — a charity that identifies and develops innovative ways of promoting literacy and reading though the creation of reading spaces. Read more.

Louise Umutoni

Louise Umutoni is the founder of Huza Press, a Rwandan-based publishing press devoted to supporting African literary craftsmanship. Huza Press has published writers such as Yolande Mukagasana, Billy Kahora and many emerging writers from across the continent. Huza Press also run the only prize for fiction in Rwanda and partnered with the Goethe-Institut last year to establish the KigaliLit series, a platform that brings together African authors to discuss their work. Read more.

Ellah Wakatama, OBE

Born in Zimbabwe, Ellah Wakatama, OBE, Hon. FRSL is a Editor-at-Large at Canongate Books, a senior Research Fellow at Manchester University and Chair of the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing. A London-based editor and critic, she was the founding Publishing Director of the Indigo Press, and was on the judging panel of the 2017 International Dublin Literary Award and the 2015 Man Booker Prize. Read more.

Elieshi Lema

Elieshi Lema is a Tanzanian writer and publisher. She is co-owner of the publishing house E&D Vision Publishing, which also operates a book café in Dar es Salaam. E&D Vision Publishing mainly has published children's books, textbooks and titles about African history, both in Swahili as well as in English. Lema is also a founding director for the Tanzania Cultural Trust Fund and has served on the board for the African Publishers Network, the Tanzania Media Fund and on the executive board for the Publishers Association of Tanzania. Read more.

Thabiso Mahlape

Thabiso Mahlape is the founder of Blackbird Books in South Africa, an independent publishing house that is dedicated to giving young black writers a platform. She holds a bachelor of information science degree specialising in publishing from the University of Pretoria. In between juggling submissions, proofs and sales, Mahlape is a columnist: she writes regularly for the Sowetan newspaper and has contributed to magazines such as Destiny and VISI. As a writer and a speaker, her focus is largely on self-development, body politics and what it means to be a black woman in South Africa. Read more.

Anwuli Ojogwu

Anwuli Ojogwu is an editor and co-founder of Narrative Landscape Press, an independent publishing firm based in Lagos, Nigeria, that publishes acclaimed writers such as Chimamanda Adichie and Oyinkan Braithwaite. She has built a career as an editor in the Nigerian book industry since its renaissance in the early noughties, working with other acclaimed writers such as A. Igoni Barrett, Binyanvanga Wainana and Uzo Iweala. She is also the co-founder of the Society for Book and Magazine Editors of Nigeria (SBMEN), an educational and professional non-profit association that provides training and resources to editors in the Nigerian publishing industry. Read more.

Needless to say, this list is not exhaustive, and we’re looking forward to seeing even more women take up space in this area.