Lunch at the Social Kitchen

I had lunch this past week with a publisher and her author. As circumstances would have it, this was the week in which I took a decision to return, to another publisher, the recently released book From A to B by Bonang Matheba. While there was much praise for our decision, owing to sloppy editing and a large number of grammatical and other errors, there were also, as usual, a number of vociferous critics. The critics saw our decision in racial terms.

It is a sad indictment on where we are in South Africa right now that even a decision like this, intrinsically tied-in to a poor product badly produced in which the central purpose of our decision (to not knowlingly sell to our customers a book that is below par in terms of its representation of text) should nevertheless attract critics who are racially motivated. We need to get beyond this.

Our decision, as the leading bookseller in the nation is to always do our best for our customers; and it hardly behoves any bookseller to launch, present, promote and advocate a book in which the English language is so poorly treated. Our approach to this particular work had nothing to do with race. Indeed, it should be apparent to anyone interested in good writing that our recent release of a catalogue covering Black writing across the Continent and the Diaspora, is testimony enough to our adherence, first, to quality writing and, second, to our recognition that Black writing, at its pre-eminent level, is as enthralling, as interesting and as powerful as anything else by any other person regardless of colour.

What I find most interesting is that an event like this is put under the racial spotlight when, really, the focus should be literary. The question arises, of course, as to what we would have done if the book had been written by a White person and the publisher had been, as is mainly the case, a majority White organisation. The unpleasant truth, for everyone, is that we would have taken the same decision. We would have taken the same decision because, ultimately, delivery of good product and respect for our customers is the most critical aspect of our business. We respect our customers and, I hope, that they, too, acknowledge us in the same light. In some profound sense, our job is to curate the nation’s taste. There is no more profound commentary on this than to point out to the reader that no more than 15% of our revenues come from the top 100 Best Sellers. Our income is generated by range and we adhere to this precept even before we recognise the almightly dollar which, no doubt, is the impulse for our existence.

None of this means that we do not see books with the occasional typo. Sometimes a passage may have a non-sequitur or even refer to an event not previously narrated. These things happen. However, if a text is so badly edited that the errors jump out at you from page after page, then we have to do something about it.

And why do we only do something about it when our customers point out the errors to us? The reason is simple enough but not easily understood by the buying public. It is because we sell, in the course of a year, around 125,000 different titles. We rely on the publisher to sell to us a product that has been properly and methodically reviewed and edited. It is impossible for any bookseller to read and review every title that one sells. We would need an army to read every text.

In the end, we rely on our customers and I am grateful that they are so quick to point out mistakes. We know that the price of a book can always be put to other uses by the consumer and it is for this reason that we have the respect we do for all readers.

BENJAMIN TRISK