Africa World Press

Africa World Press, Inc., based in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, was launched in 1983 with the publication of Ngugu wa Thiong'o's Barrel of a Pen: Resistance to Repression in Neo-Colonial Kenya. Since then, Africa World Press has published over 400 titles, including nonfiction, poetry, and photographs. The founder of the press, Kassahun Checole, was a graduate student in political science at the State University of New York in Binghamton when he decided to start a press that would allow African writers to write for the American audience. One of the most successful books published during the early days of the press was the book Afrocentricity by Molefi Kete Asante. It had been published first by Amulefi Publishing of Buffalo, New York. However, when it was taken over by the Africa World Press, the book and the press grew in popularity.

Initially the press published works by African writers who were well known, but in the 1990s the press had started to publish works by new authors, expanding its reach in the American public and to the African continent. By the early 21st century Africa World Press had evolved to become the leading publisher of books on African, African American, Caribbean, and Latin American issues.

Discovering a need to expand to serve the new African nations, the press sought to find partners in Africa who could assist in launching operations on the African continent. The publisher was especially eager to have the government of Eritrea, his home nation, involved in the distribution of books for the public and the school systems of the African nations. This became a major part of the operation of the press for many years. Africa World Press developed Red Sea Press as an imprint to deal with strictly African books, works that explicate uniquely African issues, while Africa World Press continues to publish books by African American and Caribbean writers who write on subjects that affect the pan-African world, such as The Afrocentric Paradigm by Ama Mazama. Africa World Press, with offices in London, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Ghana, is a diligent publisher and distributor of books pertaining to the pan-African world.