Pacesetter novels and popular reading
culture in Africa
If you lived in Nigeria in the 80s, then you
probably remember Pacesetter novels.
These were a series by Macmillan (I think)
which featured contemporary writers
from across Africa. Unlike the Heinemann
African Writers Series, they did not aspire
to any great literary pretensions and were
unabashedly popular in their slant.
I remember my first was The Undesirable
Element in which a young virtuous Hausa
woman (Bintu or Binta...can't remember
now) went to work in a big city (Kano ,
perhaps) and fell into the evil clutches of
a lascivious Alhaji, which I think she
eventually escaped. I also remember The
Mark of the Cobra by Valentine Alily
which featured a sort of Nigerian James
Bond dashing around in submarines and
all that kind of stuff and The Smugglers
by Kalu Okpi which was a sort of thriller
featuring the Nigerian Police. And then
you had Helen Ovbiagele's Evbu My Love
and You Never Know which I suppose
could pass for a sort of Nigerian 80s chick-
lit with its young professional working
women battling to keep their romances
alive.....Anfd there were others from
across the continent...Christmas in the
City from Ghana, For Mbatha and Rabeka
from Eastern Africa and so on.
Even the cover designs were classics in
contemporary African pop art, colourful
and amateurish, a stone throw away from
the barber shop and hairdressing salon
boards which I have seen decorating some
English homes here in London.
(somewhere in Africa, a barber shop is
missing it's sign board....)
The good thing about them was that they
were churned out on a regular basis (I
remember the thrill of walking through
the booksellers section in the market and
finding a Pacesetter that I hadn't read)
and they were cheap...when I went away
to boarding school, my grandfather gave
me the princely sum of ten naira which
bought me the two latest Pacesetters.
And yet looking back now that was the
golden age of African publishing and
popular reading.......everyone read them-
from semi literate traders in the markets
to snooty secretaries in posh Lagos offices
to spotty secondary school students and
semi sophisticated undergraduates- and
they constantly introduced new writing
from across the continent, exposing us to
everyday life in other African countries.
Plus for some writers it gave them the
first opportunity to thinking seriously
about writing......
Sadly, in the 90s as structural adjustment
programmes swept across the continent
and the value of local currencies crashed,
these books disappeared and with them,
an entire reading and writing culture.
The attempt to keep a popular culture of
reading struggles on though in such areas
as the Hausa street literature of Kano in
Nigeria, the valiant efforts of Caine Prize
winner Binyavanga Wainana's Kwani? in
Kenya http://www.kwani.org/ , Farafina
Books in Nigeria http://farafina.dbweb.ee
and now the New Gong Press publishing
from Lagos www.newgong.com
But the good news for the nostalgic is that
Pacesetter novels are back. I stumbled
across a website with a link to them
https://sslrelay.com/
www.pacesetternovels.com and you can
sneak a peek at the catalogue and relive
those feelings of the 80s as you admire
the covers which may look slightly garish
now.....
It's not clear who's behind them-
presumably Macmillan's sold the backlist-
but at 5 pounds, and sold over the
internet, they probably will not spark off
any major African reading renaissance......
but then I suppose the target market is
nostalgic old gits like me who now live
abroad and have regular access to the
internet, and credit cards to boot......


which was your favourite then ?
mine was
Evbu my love
gun merchant
cyclic

Chaiiii!!!!!!! Nostalgia!!!!!! I miss those days. Couldn't get enough of these books. Written in dimple and good English.

I read quite a number of them myself. And like you, OP, Undesirable Element was one of my first and one I appreciated a lot. Would be so nice if they started publishing again.

From these books i created my style of writing