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 September 10 2008, by Barry Bateman
Africa's global knowledge production is a dismal three percent and there is limited academic literature available for Africans living abroad.
Tackling that problem is African Diaspora Foundation board member Elias Wondimu, who is a publisher with Tsehai Publishers.
The Ethiopian has spent the last few weeks in Botswana, Zambia and South Africa establishing ties with publishing houses and academic institutions to distribute African books in the US. "Africa's knowledge contribution to the world is 3 percent, which is unacceptable.
"As Africans, we need to produce and fill the shelves of international libraries. We can't sit down and wait for a miracle to happen; it our responsibility," he said. |
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 "...Wondimu had made a promise to himself. When he first heard several Leimert Park poets reading their work at the birthday party of his friend Shonda Buchanan, he was amazed at their powerful messages. That night, he told Buchana the work had to be published.
"I felt guilty just for taking the poetry in and not sharing it with the outside world," says Wondimu, founder of Tsehai Publishers. "The longer you stay in the media, you cease to be a person and you become a conduit … Flash forward five years and now the world has become like myself at that time in that room."
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LOS ANGELES – LA Weekly featured Tsehai Publishers and its founder and publisher Elias Wondimu in its June 3-9, 2005 issue of its annual literary supplement. This special issue entitled “Publish or Perish: LA's burgeoning publishing scene” featured profiles of 18 independent presses. Tsehai Publishers, Santa Monica Press, Bukamerica, Red Hen Press, Angel City Press and Tam Tam Books are the few. Anthony Miller, the author of the article entitled “Ethiopian Dreams: Elias Wondimu and the art of bridging continents” said Wondimu created a “vital and indispensable resource”.
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