Renee Edwige Dro is the head of Collection Danbé a new imprint at l’Harmattan Publishing House in Côte d’Ivoire. Danbe is loosely translated as Dignity in Bambara, because it goes beyond dignity and that is what the new imprint promises.
An imprint to those who might be novices to this publishing industry is a trade name under which a work is published. A single publishing company may have multiple imprints, with the different imprints often used by the publisher to market works to different demographic consumer segments.
L’Harmattan is one of the largest French book publishers with hundreds of a huge catalogue of books including 500 magazines and 2,000 new books per year.
Edwige Dro who writes in both English and French first came to the notice of English speaking Africans when she was announced as one of the top 39 writers under the age of 40 two years ago. This was off the back of her short story Professor about a long-lasting friendship and love between a secondary school student and her teacher.
It’s not just how own prose that will leave her in good stead at her new role. She has already been looking at texts critically judging the PEN International/New Voices Award last year as well as with the Ake Festival/Air France Prize For Prose & Photography prize.
The new imprint based in Abidjan will focus on novels, collections and memories. If you are have a manuscript that you feel will be welcomed by Cote D’Ivoire readers then contact Edwige at espace_harmattan.ci@hotmail.fr.
Check out Edwige at a Ted talk below. Please note that it’s in French mostly.
Leave a Reply