Storied Publisher Kassahun Checole To Be Honored At 18th National Black Writers Conference
For publisher Kassahun Checole, the life of the mind has been a driving force for him dating back to when he was growing up in Eritrea. A lifelong lover of books and reading, Checole eventually went on to found Africa World Press and The Red Sea Press, both of which enabled him to spend the past four decades-plus publishing books that share the culture, history and politics of Africa and the African Diaspora. It’s a legacy framing the decision by the Center for Black Literature (CBL) to honor him at the upcoming 18th National Black Writers Conference (NBWC). Deeply humbled to be recognized by the NBWC, Checole’s connections with this event and the CBL go back a number of years.
(Photo by Nevolia E. Ogletree)
“One of my connections with the [NBWC] came because a number of my friends got the award [I’m going to receive],” Checole explained. “One of them is a good friend named Paul Coates along with Glenn Thompson from a long time ago. These are very, very good friends who played a significant role in the Black book publishing industry. I also knew people at the Center. I met Brenda Greene when she was running a bookstore in Brooklyn called Nkiru Books. I met her and her young child, at that time, now known as Talib Kweli. I engaged them in discussions. We’ve known each other for quite a while.”
Checole’s path towards becoming an independent book publisher began when he attended SUNY Binghamtom, where he earned an undergraduate degree in political science and African-American studies and a master’s in sociology. A position teaching sociology and African studies followed at Rutgers University. It was during this time when Checole was speaking at the World Sociological Conference in Mexico that he caught the eye of the president of El Colegio de Mexico, who invited the newly minted professor to come teach in Mexico. For the next five years, Checole pivoted between Rutgers and El Colegio de Mexico. It was during this time when the seed was planted for the Eritrean native to pivot into the publishing industry.
“One of the things I learned in Mexico was the ability of the Mexicans to tell their own stories through their books, cultural artifacts, museums, flowers—it’s just a beautiful cultural inheritance,” Checole recalled. “They kept it up and I was not only impressed, but envious, because we didn’t have those opportunities in Africa. There was a colonial order. They relied on extraction as opposed to educating people. I made a determination that I wanted to do this. It would be my small contribution for young people—publish good quality books that they would relate to.”
He added, “By then, I learned that the Mexican publishing industry is made up of small publishers who have dedicated their energies to educating their people. I was quite impressed and learned a lot from it. I had friends from Chile, Argentina and Mexico who were behind the idea. When I came back to the United States in 1984, I decided that’s what I wanted to do. Forget the Ph.D and all that. I wanted to devote all my energy and time to publishing good books to educate our people and the rest of the world. That’s actually what I did.”
Despite having a family to support, Checole quit his job and went forward producing books from his home under the Africa World Press name in 1983, where practically everything in production from design and layout to typesetting and indexing was manually done. Books were sold by hand, while bookstores progressive enough to carry his authors were sought out. In trying to find distribution, Checole was hit by baked-in racial misconceptions many publishing houses had.
“In 1985, I was combatting the idea that Black books do not sell and they cannot be distributed,” he said. “This was from the likes of Borders, Ingram—all the big guys. The books looked good, but they wanted to know who was going to buy them. Essentially, the assumption is that Black people don’t read. I said that I was one of those [Black people] that reads and I believed there were many more Black people that read. I defied their pessimism and started my own distribution company that we called the Red Sea Press.”
Checole’s early releases included, Detained: A Writer’s Prison Diary, by late African author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. Detained in his Kenyan homeland for several years, wa Thiong’o wrote his first book in his own language on toilet paper he was given every day which he saved to write his story. Another early African World Press title was a group of wa Thiong’o essays dubbed Barrel of a Pen: Resistance to Repression in Neo-Colonial Kenya. Red Sea Press was launched as both a publishing and distribution house that was kicked off by Checole’s friend Barrack Zailaa Rima’s need to publish his mid-‘80s experience in Lebanon.
“There was a time when Lebanon was invaded by Israel,” Checole said. “There was a terrible thing in Lebanon—a civil war and an invasion going on at the same time. A friend of mine wrote a book about his stay in Lebanon and it’s called Beirut: My Story. He asked me and other friends if I would publish it and I had the nerve to publish it. That’s how Red Sea Press started.”
Currently, Africa World Press and Red Sea Press release roughly between 50 to 60 books annually. While certain innovations have made the publishing process easier for Checole (“Now, there is a tremendous technological innovation in a digital age where you can essentially edit, compose and produce your books digitally. It’s made it easier while also revolutionizing the printing industry”), his passion and love of the written word are constants that keep African World Press and Red Sea Press moving forward.
“The joy of doing all this goes back to how much I love reading other people’s histories, their narratives and their thinking,” Checole said. “You have a hand in editing it, good or bad. You can have someone say, ‘You’re messing up my book’ or ‘Go ahead, you’re doing well.’ It’s a joy to work with authors. An author, as you know, works day and night for this child. The book is his or her child and they want it to be be considered very well. It challenges your mindset and allows you to move forward thinking positively in exposing all the issues around the world.”
At the same time, Checole feels this mission to share knowledge, culture and history, particularly in and around the African diaspora, is a goal he shares with the Center for Black Literature.
“The importance of what we do is to invigorate and teach as well as disseminate rare information to primarily the Black community, but also to the whole world,” he said. “The world is made of all of us and we all need to read and understand what goes on in our background and history.”
Kassahun Checole will be honored at the 18th National Black Writers Conference on Saturday, March 25 at Medgar Evers College, AB1 Dining Hall, 1638 Bedford Ave. Visit www.centerforblackliterature.org for program and registration information.