The young man who asked for anonymity is a book vendor who has set not really a shop but an address, around the National Theater. He is young, handsome and smiling. He is not an ambulatory book vendor going from one street to the other or from one place to the other. He usually sits down or stands near the books he spreads on the ground waiting for buyers. However, most of the potential buyers come to his place, look at some of the titles, and leave without buying. A few others snatch the title they are looking for, negotiate the price and pay for them.
“How is business?” I asked the book vendor, whose smile seems to betray a shy or modest character.
“Not so bad” he answered.
“Are people buying books these days?’
“Not many of them.”
“Why is that?”
“Maybe they don’t have enough money,” he added. “They may not have extra money for books. Life is expensive these days you know.”
“How about those who can afford to buy books?”
“Some of them are buying, but they are not many”
“What kind of books do they buy?”
“Most of them prefer political books… you know why…politics is a hot issue nowadays”
He picked some of the book titles and showed them to me. The books are diverse, big and small, with colorful or dull cover pages. He told me that these books sell well because many people are fond of political issues more than anything. The recent dramatic political events are also some of the factors that encourage people to read about them.
I thanked him for his comments and made my way towards Lion Bar, an area where books and magazines vendors abound. Some of them carry piles of books on both arms and walk around in a strange way, sometimes staggering under the weight while trying not to spill some of them in the ponds or pools of water the rain has produced on the ground.
When I tried to talk to a couple of them, they seemed not interested that much. They approached me inquiring whether I was looking for a particular book. I told them I was around to see how they were faring in their business in this rainy season. “We’ve no choice.” one of them said as he was leaving in haste, once he realized that I was not buying. “It’s a matter of life and death…we have no other alternative…at least it’s better than stealing money…”
In this time of very high youth unemployment in Addis, these youngsters deserve appreciation for a choosing to “live by the sweat of their brows” Bible orders, instead of opting for easier and more lucrative activities by engaging in illegal or criminal activities. Most booksellers are forced to travel the length and breadth of the city not because they like doing it but as a result of adverse circumstances.
These youngsters hit the road after their small dilapidated bookshops were either removed by the city authorities or were threatened with evictions to give space for new buildings. The area around National Theatre used to be crowded with bookshops, mobile book sellers and buyers. Nowadays, the area has become what we may perhaps call the most important financial center of Addis, like London’s City. The biggest private banks are building their high rise headquarters there, some of them very impressive, like the headquarters of Nib International Bank that has the shape of a beehive and other architectural wonders.
Meanwhile, the small bookshops have given way to the bankers while the booksellers roam around the area. The city administration should be commended for giving space to the new buildings. However, it should also criticized for doing so by evicting bookshops while it might have been possible to provide them with some kind of shelter where the young book vendors could display their books and earn a stable living in these hard times. Why not allocate a space for bookshops at a convenient spot in the capital where all bookshops would congregate and give service to booklovers coming from all parts of the capital? Books should be seen as important or as part of the process of beautifying the capital or planting trees. Books are also trees that are planted and grow in people’s minds although they take relatively long years to grow and bear fruits.
Every season
in Ethiopia brings to attention some kind of social activity. The rainy season
can be said to bring the need for books and reading into sharper focus. There
are many reasons for this. Schools are closed for three wet and cold months.
Civil servants take annual leaves. Teachers are largely free to do whatever
they like; except those who take skill upgrading courses or attend seminars.
People spend most of their times indoors, either sipping their tea to ward off
the cold or roasting corn on coal fire or logging to the internet and surfing
the web. A few of them may be enjoying reading as a way of spending their free
time or warming up their minds
if you like.
The rainy season in Addis Ababa, and to a certain extent in Ethiopia at large, offers many opportunities and challenges in the sphere of book publishing, distribution and the book business in general. It is a season of books, so to say. Book exhibitions are held. Book publishing is always a tough business in Ethiopia. The rising costs of print paper has always been a bane on the publishing industry. This does not obviously improve with the coming of the rainy season. Only a handful of publishers and printers can afford to survive despite the rising costs.
Authors have fewer opportunities or alternatives to get published. Self-publishing in the developed world has assumed a highly sophisticated technological level. Any person who can write a book and has the money to publish it can do so by going to one of the many publishing firms who can publish for them any number of books, from three to three million, provided they can foot the bills. This rainy season for instance could be a good opportunity to organize seminars and meetings for discussing the state of book writing, publishing and distributing in Ethiopia. Maybe solutions could emerge in the process.
Street book vendors are perhaps some of the people negatively affected by the elements, particularly starting from July and going all through September. These are long months of rain, cold and abundant time off. On the other hand, itinerant book vendors find it more difficult to carry their wares from place to place, at the same time protecting them from rain water that obviously damages them and cause losses. Their movement is limited; so is their potential or real income.
By the way, itinerant book vendors are common sites in smaller towns around Addis, such as Bishoftu or Dukem even though the farther you go from the capital the lower may be the number of booksellers and book readers. The situation is not however desperate. Volunteers are coming up from time to time with new ideas for spreading the culture of book reading which is ultimately a defining issues as far as developing culture and spreading public awareness are concerned.
However, all book vendors do not suffer from these vicissitudes. There are many bookshops in Addis whose businesses are blooming. Most of them are located in the first floors of new high rises whose rents are quit unaffordable by smaller book vendors let alone by itinerant ones. Almost every new high rise has a bookshop on its first floor. And this is an encouraging trend. Food for the body should go hand in hand with food for the mind. While we go through the long rainy season, let us hope that the fate of what we may call ‘mobile book vendors” would improve so that they can survive these economically hard times to see better days next summer. Meanwhile they will keep on working and walking hard to secure their daily bread so that we can have food for our minds.
The Ethiopian Herald July 14, 2019
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
