Covering almost one hundred years of publishing history, this is a rich and nuanced study of the ways in which African literature has been marginalised, stereotyped, consecrated, and globalised. It offers a thought-provoking engagement with sociological theories of literary circulation and cultural capital, drawing on diverse methodologies to deepen our understanding of the World Republic of Letters.

Kathryn Batchelor, University College London

Meticulously researched, Francophone African Narratives and the Anglo-American Book Market:Ferment on the Fringes proposes an ambitious and inspiring demonstration of the crucial role played by translators, publishers and journalists in the transnational value-making process of African literature. Based on a corpus of translated narratives and archival work, this superb research generated at the crossroads of translation and postcolonial studies, sociology, and literary analysis is also attentive to minor transversal articulations that have shaped the meaning of African literary production in the 20th and 21st century.

Claire Ducournau, Université Paul-Valéry

This is the fascinating story of the multiple forces that wrought the contours of sub-Saharan francophone literature as it entered the Anglo-American marketplace. With her freshly-tuned diachronic and transnational approach, Vivan Steemers unravels the amazing interconnections between the act of translation and the socio-political environment in which this occurred. Elegantly navigating between past and present, Steemers shows how the perception of key figures of African literature like René Maran and Mariama Bâ has been shaped by the paratextual frame in which they were introduced to an often non-French speaking readership. Francophone African Narratives and the Anglo-American Book Market will find avid readers among colleagues in search of new postcolonial challenges in comparative literature, world literature, and translation studies.

Ieme van der Poel, Universiteit van Amsterdam

This is a very insightful materialist analysis of the translation of francophone African fiction into English. It draws on a corpus of 118 translated texts and fresh archival material. Focusing primarily on the circulation of this literature between francophone and anglophone spaces, there are also some fascinating new comparisons via colonial dimensions of the Dutch literary field. Vivan Steemers adds substantial empirical material and theoretical reflections to ongoing debates concerning gender, world literature, and material contexts of translatability.

Ruth Bush, University of Bristol