Narrative Landscape Press believes that owning the means of production is essential to a vibrant African publishing industry
Special Report by Cairo Correspondent
Narrative Landscape Press Limited (NLP) believes that owning the means of production is essential to a vibrant publishing industry. The firm believes that the “means of production” here does not just mean the printing of physical books but also editorial and book design expertise, as founders say “We are developing a cadre of excellent writers.”
Narrative Landscape Press Limited was founded in 2016 by two established authors, Anwuli Ojogwu and Eghosa Imasuen. The dream of the founders was to create a firm that could distil the essence of the publishing process and provide a service to other publishing houses and self-publishing authors within the Nigerian space. The company signed service level agreements as providers of publishing services to institutions like the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library.
In 2018, NLP decided to take the plunge into traditional publishing and opened its submissions desk. Their first big success was the acquisition of the books of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. They have since ventured in other genres of traditional publishing and are now taking their first steps into educational books for school curricula.
Anwuli Ojogwu is the managing director of Narrative Landscape Press. She has 10 years’ experience as an Editor, Writer and Communication Specialist. A graduate in English & Literature from the University of Benin, Anwuli has built a career in the Nigerian book industry since its renaissance in the early noughties. She has served in different companies such as Kachifo Limited as an Editor; FATE Foundation as a Communications Manager; and Thinking Beyond Borders, San Francisco as Digital Media Manager. As an editor, she has worked with writers such as Chimamanda Adichie, Binyanvanga Wainana, and Uzo Iweala.
Dr. Eghosa Imasuen is the Executive Director, Business Development, Narrative Landscape Press Limited. He graduated with a 1999 medical degree from the University of Benin and worked for several years as a medical doctor. He also worked in his family’s business, which had interests in Oil and Pipeline Engineering and Finance. His first novel was published by the Farafina imprint of Kachifo Limited in 2008. Eghosa worked as Chief Operations Officer at Kachifo Limited from 2013-2016.
They both believe in the beauty of words, in truth that comes from the seamless elegance of beautiful art, design, and clean lines. They believe that books, of all creative genres, serve this function: “What can be truer than a line of exquisite poetry? What can be more inspiring to the imagination than the world of books?”
NLP team has a group of creative editors, as Joy Nwamaka Chime, who is a graduate of Philosophy from Olabisi Onabanjo University. She is the managing editor at Wawa Book Review, an online magazine for book reviews. She currently works at Narrative Landscape Press as the assistant editor.
Eniye Osawe-Imasuen is the administrative and HR manager at Narrative Landscape Press Ltd. She also heads the sales team of Narrative Landscape Press. She is a graduate of Agriculture from the University of Benin. With a flair for customer and public relations, she has more than a decade of experience working with UACN Plc and the Edo State Judiciary. She lives in Lagos with her husband and their twin sons
Adebayo Gbenga is a creative artist with a B.A. in Creative Arts from Tai Solarin University of Education, Ogun State. His professional skills include arts and crafts, editorial designs, publishing (eBooks and print), and illustrations. He has worked with book publishers, magazine firms, individual authors, and clientele in Nigeria and around the world. He is currently the graphics editor for Narrative Landscape Press in Lagos.
A look at some covers will definitely prove the creative artistic talent to make a great impact on readers. Here is a few selections to showcase NLP collections.
Love Does Not Win Elections, by Ayisha Osory
In 2014 Ayisha answers a call from within to contest the primaries for a seat in the National Assembly on the platform of Nigeria’s ruling party – the People’s Democratic Party. She is dissatisfied with the quality of representation – both from the men and women in office and after years advising on and working to get more women into leadership positions, she is curious about what it would take to contest and win.
Can and does she do all that is required of her as an aspirant or does she pick and choose and what impact did her choices have on the results? Was there ever a chance that she could have won? Go through the journey of midnight meetings, envelopes full of money, prayers for sale, tracking the First Lady and trying to get President Jonathan to realise the damage that was being done to the party with the automatic ticket policy and find out what it takes to win (or lose) the primaries of a major political party in Nigeria.
Told in a witty style that belies the heft of its subject matter, Ayisha takes her readers on a spell binding journey into the political underbelly of Nigeria.
The Kaya Girl, by Mamle Wolo
In a bustling market in Ghana’s capital city, the lives of two very different girls collide. Neither of them will ever be the same.
Abena is spending her summer vacation working at her auntie’s shop in Makola Market, a place she and her wealthy friends would typically never go. She would sooner be found at the mall. Faiza is a Muslim migrant worker from the North who makes her living in the market as a porter, carrying goods in a bowl balanced on her head.
When the two girls meet, they forge an unlikely and powerful friendship. So different in their experiences, each opens the door to an unseen world for the other—and is forever changed by what they discover. Playing out against an eye-opening backdrop of wealth and poverty, the story of these two teenagers vibrates with unforgettable characters crossing the chasms of difference that divide us—and celebrating the deeper truths that bring the best of friends together.
Sankofa, by Chibundu Onuzo
Masterful in its examination of freedom, prejudice, and personal and public inheritance, Sankofa is a story for anyone who has ever gone looking for a clear identity or home, and found something more complex in its place.
Anna is at a stage of her life when she is beginning to wonder who she really is. She has separated from her husband, her daughter is all grown up, and her mother—the only parent who raised her—is dead.
Searching through her mother’s belongings one day, Anna finds clues about the African father she never knew. His student diaries chronicle his involvement in radical politics in 1970s London. Anna discovers that he eventually became the president—some would say dictator—of a small nation in West Africa. And he is still alive…
When Anna decides to track her father down, a journey begins that is disarmingly moving, funny, and fascinating. Like the metaphorical bird that gives the novel its name, Sankofa expresses the importance of reaching back to knowledge gained in the past and bringing it into the present to address universal questions of race and belonging, the overseas experience for the African diaspora, and the search for a family’s hidden roots.
Notes On Grief, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
From the globally acclaimed, best-selling novelist and author of “We Should All Be Feminists”, a timely and deeply personal account of the loss of her father.
Notes on Grief is an exquisite work of meditation, remembrance, and hope, written in the wake of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s beloved father’s death in the summer of 2020. As the COVID-19 pandemic raged around the world and kept Adichie and her family members separated from one another, her father succumbed unexpectedly to complications of kidney failure.
In this extended essay, which originated in a New Yorker piece, Adichie shares how this loss shook her to her core. She writes about being one of the millions of people grieving this year; about the familial and cultural dimensions of grief and also about the loneliness and anger that are unavoidable in it. With signature precision of language, and glittering, devastating detail on the
A Stranger In Their Midst, by Charles E. Archibong
The author was elevated to the bench of the Federal High Court of Nigeria in 2002—the primary superintending forum of Nigeria’s federal system, with jurisdiction over the executive activity of the federal government and all its agencies.
This book details matters that came before Archibong during his time as a Federal Judge. His characteristic approach to adjudication was a decided bent toward speedy conclusion of proceedings before him. These cases ranged from the abduction of a sitting state governor, the recall of the Deputy President of the Nigerian Senate, a trial of activists of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), to pushing through trial a civil claim against federal authorities over publication of an air accident report, oil magnates and communication czars tangling with their creditors. The stories are told with the skill and pathos of an excellent writer.
Things reach a climax when Justice Archibong collides with senior lawyers engaged on behalf of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to conduct a major criminal trial, and about the same time the Judge gets caught in the crossfire of feuding political bigwigs litigating for the control of party political structures. These conflicts will lead to the premature termination of his judicial career.
How To Write About Africa, by Binyavanga Wainaina
Binyavanga Wainaina was a seminal author and creative force, remembered as one of the greatest chroniclers of contemporary African life.
This groundbreaking collection brings together, for the first time, Binyavanga’s pioneering writing on the African continent, including many of his most critically acclaimed pieces, such as the viral satirical sensation, ‘How to Write about Africa’.
Writing fearlessly across a range of topics – from politics to international aid, cultural heritage and redefining sexuality – this is a remarkable illustration of a writer at the height of his power.
The Stolen Daughters Of Chibok, by Aisha Muhammed-Oyebode
It has been ten years since the abduction of the Chibok school girls shocked the world. The Stolen Daughters of Chibok, a collection of narratives by the families of the girls and some of the girls themselves.
In the middle of the night of April 14 to 15, 2014, terrorists abducted 276 girls from their secondary school’s dormitory in the town of Chibok, Northeast Nigeria. Over the following days, fifty-seven girls managed to escape. For two years, 219 girls remained missing.
During the last four months of 2015, in the heat of the worst of the Boko Haram insurgency, Aisha Muhammed-Oyebode, the CEO of the Murtala Muhammed Foundation (MMF) embarked on a project to interview, photograph, and document the accounts of the parents of each of the missing girls. The MMF’s team managed to meet the relatives of 210 of them.
In the intervening years, 107 girls have made it home: four by Nigerian military/paramilitary intervention, and 103 by negotiated release. At the time of going to press 112 girls remain unaccounted for.
The Stolen Daughters of Chibok is a collection of written and pictorial narratives from the families of these stolen girls. It features the photography of award winner photographer Akintunde Akinleye. Essays and analyses from acclaimed experts append these personal histories to create a tribute to the girls, capturing their lives before the abduction and presenting the trauma of a community desperately learning to cope.
Read: Female Writers of Africa who Fought against Patriarchy
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