The African Writers Series is one of the most consequential publishing ventures in literary history. Launched by Heinemann Educational Books in 1962 under the editorial stewardship of Alan Hill and, crucially, Chinua Achebe — who served as founding series editor — it became the primary vehicle through which African literature reached the world in the postcolonial era. Over four decades, the series published more than 300 titles, giving first major publication to writers including Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Wole Ṣóyínká, Buchi Emecheta, Bessie Head, Ama Ata Aidoo, and Ayi Kwei Armah, among dozens of others across the continent.
The distinctive orange-spined paperbacks — affordable by design, intended for African students as much as Western readers — became an emblem of a generation's literary ambition. Each volume carried the promise that African stories belonged in print, in classrooms, in hands. The series reshaped what "world literature" could mean.
Our 100-volume collection spans the series' full breadth, from the earliest titles of the 1960s through to the later waves of the 1980s and 1990s. It represents an extraordinary cross-section of West, East, and Southern African fiction, poetry, and drama, and constitutes one of the most important research resources we are placing into Nigerian libraries.