An Imprint of Présence Africaine Editions
Founded in 1949 by Alioune Diop, Présence Africaine is the world’s oldest Black-owned independent publishing company.
Présence Africaine is best known for being the first to publish many Frenching speaking African writers including Cheikh Anta Diop, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Ousmane Sembène. They also published the French translations of Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, and Kwame Nkrumah.
In 2018 Présence Africaine published the French translation of Ta-Nehisi Coates critically acclaimed book, We Were Eight Years in Power (Huit ans au pouvoir) exposing Coates’ book to a global audience of Francophone readers. Ta-Nehisi’s father Paul Coates, founder of Black Classic Press and BCP Digital relates the significance of this publishing milestone in the video below.
Pictured: Présence Africaine’s bookstore in, Paris France (photo: Maya Johnson).
Check out our Top 100 Publisher Imprints and our list of Black-owned Publishers.