Mbari Publications

Mbari Publications were produced by the Mbari Club in Ibadan between 1961 and 1964 — a span of just three years that constitutes one of the most concentrated bursts of literary production in African history. The Club, founded by Ulli Beier and drawing in writers including Wole Ṣóyínká, J.P. Clark, Christopher Okigbo, and Chinua Achebe, was at the centre of the extraordinary literary ferment of early Nigerian independence.

The pamphlets and slim volumes produced under the Mbari imprint were the first publications of several writers who would go on to reshape world literature. First editions of Ṣóyínká's earliest plays, of Okigbo's first poems, of Clark's debut work — all emerged from Mbari's modest press. They were produced in small print runs for local circulation and have become extraordinarily rare.

Our 16 Mbari titles represent a genuinely significant acquisition: primary documents from the founding moment of modern Nigerian literature, in their original form.