PUBLISHER'S SPEECH AT LAUNCHING OF KAIRABA

Speech by Alhaji Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara, the Publisher of Kairaba, delivered on his behalf by Ebrima Jawara.

 

 

·        Your Excellency the President of The Republic of The Gambia SHEIKH PROFESSOR ALH. DR. YAHYA AJJ JAMMEH

·        Your Excellency the Former President of Sierra Leone H E ALHAJI AHMAD TEJAN KABBAH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF SIERRA LEONE  

·        Your Excellency the President of the ECOWAS Commission Ambassador James Victor Gbeho.

·        Your Excellency The High Commissioner of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Ambassador (MRS) ESTHER JOHN AUDU, Representing H E Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, former President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

·        President of the Liberia Chamber of Commerce, Mr Monie Ralph Captan

·        H E Lady Njaimeh Jawara

·        H E Lady Chilel Jawara

·        The Honourable Speaker of the National Assembly,

·        The Lord Chief Justice

·        Members of the Diplomatic and Consular Corp

·        Members of the Cabinet

·        Security Chiefs

·        Paramount Chief

·        Distinguished guests

·        Ladies and Gentlemen all protocols duly observed.

 

I stand here before you not as the son of the Publisher Alhaji Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara but as a member of the publishing team. Kairaba is probably the first time in history that a former head of state has self-published his or her autobiography. Initially there were reservations from some quarters that it was not appropriate for a former president to publish his own book. It would not look good. It would have been nice to have had the book published by MacMillan, Bantam or even Fuladu Publishers.

Indeed Sir Dawda had approached the National Democratic Institute based in the United States, the Nordic Africa Institute based in Sweden, the British Council and one or two other institutions for assistance in publishing his autobiography. None of them for one reason or the other could finance the project.   Nonetheless, he went ahead using his own limited resources to edit, design, print, distribute, market, publicise and launch his autobiography. The simplest definition of a publisher is the one who has the most to lose financially if a book does not do well in the market. So at the age of 85, Sir Dawda added book publisher to his CV.

A publisher's first job is to decide whether to bring a particular project, a book, to the market. That's quickly started, but often a slow and tortuous process in practice. Just under 4 years in Kairaba's case.

When the project started in May 2006 it was supposed to last nine months with the book launched a year later, in May 2007 on Sir Dawda's birthday. After 15 months of long interview sessions, a first draft was ready. An editorial panel consisting of Nana Grey-Johnson, Swaebou Conateh, Momodou F Singhateh and Fodeh Baldeh was formed in August 2007. In June 2008 Nana Grey-Johnson left the project and the editorial panel consisted of Momodou F Singhateh, Swaebou Conateh and Fodeh Baldeh. They continued until January 2009. By then the book had been reduced from 42 chapters and over 1,000 pages of main text, to 37 chapters and just over 600 pages of main text.

Sir Dawda continued the editing on his own, with help from his son Ebrima. They worked an average of 16 hours a week, going over the chapters, line by line. After four months of intensive editing, the book was reduced to 33 Chapters and 510 pages of text - the finished product being launched here today. Next was the task of selecting photos and finishing the book to as high a standard as possible. Fodeh Baldeh came in again to do the indexing, formatting on indesign, design of the Jackets, placement of pages, etc. Ebrima arranged the photos that were shortlisted and also did their captions.

Lawyer Modou Drameh oversaw the legal aspects of the book, vetting the various agreements related to the project - which included employment agreements, non-disclosure agreements, printing on demand agreements, sales agreements, etc.

One of the advantages of publishing yourself is the control you have over the manuscript. For example, footnotes were used which we were advised were not the norm. However if Sir Charles Darwin could use it in his "The Origin of Species and the Voyage of the Beagle", so too could Sir Dawda in Kairaba.

We considered different printing options, including having it done in Nigeria, as wells as a few Gambian Publishing houses. One of Sir Dawda's main concerns was the price. He wanted it at the lowest possible retail price to make it available to as many people as possible. After some research on the internet, a few companies who did print on demand were asked for quotes. He eventually settled for domtom publishers who are based in the United Kingdom. They were by far the cheapest, subject to the book's specifications, even taking the cost of transportation into consideration. We still had them checked out with Companies House, and Sir Dawda was also able to visit them in February 2009 and he was impressed with their operations. Incidentally, Kairaba is the biggest project they have undertaken.

To further keep the price down we had to negotiate for every aspect of the book's publication to keep its cost down. In each case we looked at different options constantly thinking outside the box and in the process breaking a few publishing norms.

I have known Sir Dawda for over 34 years and never realized he was an author, until I saw the last drafts of Kairaba.

Kairaba is an important book. It is one of extraordinary courage and conviction, it reveals the poetry of Sir Dawda's life as well as the prose. Certainly the book reveals parts of his lifestory that very few amongst us would dare reveal to the world. He reveals shares with us how his life affected others and the country. As you read, you feel him uncovering the experiences of the nation rather than just his. Each chapter follows on from the last in a chronological order - flowing and easy to read. When writing an autobiography you wonder: was it disrespectful to others? Was anyone offended? Did me putting my own petty story on the record cause any embarrassment? 

Those questions were answered most pertinently by a review in the Point Newspaper's 9 April edition and I quote: "Furthermore, this book is already a primary source on Gambian history. Even before it is widely distributed, it is way above the earlier famous sources on Gambian history such as Gray's 1940 History of the Gambia, Gailey's 1964 A History of The Gambia or Berkley Rice's 1966 Enter Gambia: The Birth of an Improbable Nation. For the better part of the political history of modern Gambia, this book shall stand out as the unique reference, the magnum opus, to be quoted ad nausem by writers, historians and other scholars on Gambian history. As it is an eyewitness account, it would be treated as a primary source of Gambian history".

For present and future generations of Gambians, Africans and the rest of world, Sir Dawda's uncovering of his story offers a clear eyed and compassionate analysis of how one deals with difficult decisions that impact on the lives of every citizen in the country.

We hope you will all buy a copy or two. It will be available for sale at Timbooktoo in Bakau as from 3pm today, and can be bought over the internet via domtom publishing's website.

Thank you for your kind attention.