John Rusimbi, former Member of Parliament and National Youth Council, was on July 21 elected as president of the newly established Rwanda’s Book Industry Federation. The federation brings together different stakeholders in book production and promotion namely book authors, publishers, librarians, book sellers, designers and illustrators. It will be autonomous but will report to Rwanda Cultural and Heritage Academy (RCHA) as a patronizing agency. Speaking to The New Times, Rusimbi said the uniqueness of the federation is that it brings together all key stakeholders in the book value chain to work together towards uplifting Rwanda’s book industry. “When they meet in one federation,” he said, “each stakeholder can be advised on where to put much effort. Instead of having every union working on their own, we can merge efforts.” According to him, the federation will also do advocacy regarding book policy that needs to be set so that at least taxes can be exempted on local book sellers in order for books to be sold at cheaper prices within the country. He said that the federation will also work on advocating for stakeholders in the book industry to get training in order to strengthen their capacities so that they can scale up internationally with quality books. Rusimbi was in June 2022 also elected as the President of the Pan-African Writers Association (PAWA), an umbrella body of writers’ associations on the African continent and the diaspora. He is the author of a novel “By The Time She Returned released in 1994 when he was about to come back to Rwanda from exile in Uganda. The novel tackles his experience as a refugee. He describes his other book “The Hyena’s Wedding” as “a critic of the regime that perpetrated Genocide against the Tutsi in 1994.” Other members of the Rwanda’s Book Industry Federation’s Executive Committee include First Vice President, Jean Marie Vianney Rurangwa who is an author and sociologist, Second Vice President, Mutesi Gasana who is the founder of Ubuntu Publishers, Secretary General, Dominique Alonga Uwera who is the founder of Imagine We Publishers and Treasurer, Fiston Mudacumura who owns Mudacumura Publishing House.
