Jamana
Jamana is an organization of the Jamana Multimedia Cultural Cooperative. The company was created in 1988 to fill a void, because, at that time, there was only one publishing house, and it was state run.
Jamana was therefore Mali’s first private publishing firm. Jamana gives priority to publications geared toward young people and women in the national languages. It aims at being accessible to all Malian and foreign authors. Because we are aware that our country’s sustainable development requires the promotion of national languages, we strongly encourage their use in the education system. Over the past few years, particular focus has been put on publishing books for young people, as well as pre-education, textbooks, extracurricular, and academic books. Our battle against illiteracy finds expression in the promotion of our cultures and the defence of an economically viable publishing industry. As part of our pan-African aim, we encourage all kinds of partnerships: co-publishing, distribution, adaptation of books, copyright sale. Co-publishing has also grown somewhat, because we believe that the salvation of the African publishing industry necessarily depends on developing partnerships between African and foreign publishers.
Jamana signifie dans plusieurs langues africaines : le pays. Pour nous il s’agit du Mali bien sûr, mais surtout de l’Afrique. Notre logo : une carte de l’Afrique (tirée de la carte pour un monde solidaire ; carte un peu « étirée ») traversée par l’idéogramme bambara de la connaissance, le Mali occupant sa place. Pour nous, l’Afrique (et le monde) ne se développera qu’à travers une vraie solidarité.
Contact : Hamidou KONATÉ