An Interview with Sakhile from Zimbabwe | Reading Around the Globe

1. What is your name? Sakhile
2. Blog URL? Sakhile Whispers
3. Twitter handle? @sakhilewhispers
4. Where do you live? South Africa, originally from Zimbabwe
5. Do you find that there is a culture of reading where you live? If not, tell us a bit how you came to be one! There’s definitely a culture of reading of reading. It might be different and not as complicated.
6. What kinds of books do you enjoy reading? My favourite genre is contemporary fiction but once in a while I find a fantasy book that I love. I prefer YA but unfortunately, there isn’t a very wide range of it in African Literature although an organisation called AfroYA is aiming to fix that and I am super excited for what they have in store for us.
7. Have you always been a reader? From as young as I can remember. My mother was a teacher so she would bring my sisters and I books from the school she worked in.
8. Do you also read books published in your native language/published locally to you? If so, tell us a bit about what kinds of books are published in your country! English is the official language where I’m from and in South Africa, so a lot of books are published in that language. The last time I read a book in IsiNdebele and IsiZulu was for school. We learn in English and our native languages are more of a secondary language and subject. I can speak, read and write in my native language but it would take me a week to finish a book written in IsiNdebele or IsiZulu that would take me a day to read in English.
9. Are there libraries where you live? If so, what kinds of books can you find there? Are you able to get the books that you want? I grew up in the second largest city in Zimbabwe and there was one public library and you had to collect popular books such as Harry Potter at the special section and pay for them. In South Africa the library situation is a little better. There are libraries in every district but the selection isn’t very good. You can find a recent release and by recent I mean 2015.
10. How prevalent are English published books where you live in bookstores? (For example, books printed by HarperCollins.) It’s actually more difficult to find books published in African languages than it is to find English, French or Portuguese books. There are writing clubs that support African language authors but they are not as readily available to the public.
11. Do you use NetGalley or Edelweiss to request electronic galleys for review? If so, what kind of success rate would you estimate for you personally? 99% of the books on NetGalley are not available for request but sometimes I get lucky and I am able to request a book that I actually like. I sent a request once on Edelweiss which was obviously denied and I haven’t used it since.
12. Do you experience hurdles or barriers to access for the kinds of books that you read? Please explain if so. So many hurdles. Physical books are criminally expensive in this country. A new release at a book store will be anything from ZAR300. Shipping costs are insane so Amazon is a no go. Book Depository is unreliable as it’s a huge risk to spend money on there because it can take anything from 6 months to never receiving your book. Ebooks are the easiest and cheapest way to access books but sometimes they aren’t available in my country or they cost even more than a physical book which is unfair.
13. If you could make one change to the publishing landscape, what would you do? Make ebooks available internationally and cheaper than a physical book. I bought a book last month another blogger said it was on special for $1.99 so I click on the link to buy it and the price from my country is actually $12.99, this is an ebook, the physical book was even less which makes no sense. The publishing industry has to be aware that people outside of US/AUS/UK/EU read books right? I understand the issue with licenses but it honestly can’t be that difficult to obtain a license to sell a book in a particular country.
14. Help other international bloggers out… What resources do you use to obtain the books that you want to read? I am subscribed to bookbub.com which lets me know when certain titles and books by authors I follow are on special or free on Amazon. This site is so helpful because books tend to be insanely expensive when you factor in the exchange rate. I purchase most of my physical books from secondhand shops.
15. Do you have any other experiences as a reader around the world that you would like to share? Answering these questions has got me thinking about the importance of language. Living in a place where your language is secondary, deemed not as important as English, French or Portuguese really messes with our culture. I have little cousins who can’t read in IsiNdebele and probably never will and that makes me sad.

Please note that all experiences reflected in the interviews are personal and are not meant to generalize what reading access is like in each country. If you are interested in participating please DM me on Twitter.