"The dissertation undertakes a new approach to the study of African literature, which it derives from the interdisciplinary field of enquiry associated first and foremost with Lucien Febvre and his l'histoire du livre (The History of the Book). It examines the role of media production technology, the impact of the printing industry, editorial theory and practice, the socio-economic dynamics of publishing, and the survival of books in relation to changes in social structure. It argues that we can understand the historical changes in the African world by reading those changes primarily through the prism of the history of literary production. By exploring the historical context for the emergence and decline of the African Writers Series, a series dedicated to the publication of African authors by the British publishing house of Heinemann Educational Books, the dissertation formulates a paradigm for understanding socio-historical changes in Africa. It demonstrates how knowledge of the historical and political contexts of the production of literature, the material life that publishers, authors and products inhabit, and the international and transcultural dynamics of production and transmission necessarily challenge the conventional understanding of literary texts"--Abstract.
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