The Kano World of Paperbacks Exhibition of 1969 belongs to a revealing period in Nigeria’s post-independence history. Kano State was only two years old, the Nigerian Civil War was still being fought, and questions about education, language and access to printed material remained important across the country.
The exhibition was connected to a wider programme of the United States Information Agency, known as USIA, which was circulating displays called The World of Paperbacks internationally by the late 1960s. Yet the importance of the Kano episode does not lie in the idea that foreign paperbacks introduced books or written culture to Northern Nigeria. Kano and the wider Hausa-speaking world already possessed deep traditions of Islamic scholarship, manuscript production, Hausa writing, newspapers and organised publishing.
The significance of the exhibition lies in the meeting of three powerful historical forces: the effort to widen access to affordable books, the continuing importance of Hausa in publishing and education, and the use of books as instruments of international cultural diplomacy.
The Kano World of Paperbacks Exhibition in a Young State
Kano State had been created on 27 May 1967, when the Federal Military Government under Major General Yakubu Gowon replaced Nigeria’s four-region structure with twelve states.
By 1969, the new state was therefore still establishing its administrative institutions. At the same time, Nigeria remained at war. The Nigerian Civil War, which had begun in July 1967, continued until January 1970.
The Kano exhibition consequently took place during an unusual national moment. Nigeria was engaged in a devastating conflict, yet schools, ministries, publishing organisations and cultural institutions continued to operate away from the principal battlefronts.
Education remained an important responsibility of government.
A prominent figure in Kano’s educational administration at the time was Alhaji Muktar Adnan, whose name also appears in contemporary records as Muhtari Sarkin Bai and Muhammad Muhtari. He held the traditional title Sarkin Bai of Kano and served as Kano State Commissioner for Education.
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John N. Paden’s study of Kano records Muhtari Sarkin Bai in connection with the state education portfolio. The Nigeria Year Book 1973 also lists Alhaji Muhtari Sarkin Bai as Kano State Commissioner for Education.
His position placed him within a much wider discussion about schooling, literacy, language and the availability of suitable reading material in the new state.
The American World of Paperbacks Programme
The international programme behind the Kano World of Paperbacks Exhibition formed part of the educational and cultural activities of the United States Information Agency.
On 31 January 1968, USIA reported on measures intended to increase the international flow of books and educational materials. Among these activities were exhibitions called The World of Paperbacks.
The exhibitions were circulated to universities, information centres, book fairs and binational centres. Their purpose was to encourage interest in books and expand readership.
USIA also recognised a commercial effect. The circulation of the exhibitions helped stimulate overseas demand for American publications.
The World of Paperbacks was an exhibition programme rather than simply a charitable book donation scheme.
USIA operated a separate Donated Book Program, under which millions of books were sent abroad during the 1960s. The paperback exhibitions formed a different part of the agency’s effort to promote books, reading and American publishing internationally.
The paperback format was particularly suitable for such a programme. Paperbacks were generally lighter and cheaper to produce and transport than hardback editions. They could therefore provide publishers and cultural organisations with a practical way of placing books before larger audiences.
Affordability, however, was only one part of access.
Hausa Books and the Question of Language
A book may be inexpensive and still remain beyond the practical reach of many potential readers if it is not available in a language they can comfortably use.
This made Hausa particularly important in Northern Nigeria.
By 1969, Hausa was already one of the major languages of communication across Northern Nigeria and parts of West Africa. It was used in commerce, broadcasting, education, religious teaching and literature.
The challenge was not to invent Hausa literature. It was to expand the production and distribution of suitable material for readers.
English occupied a major position in Nigeria’s formal educational system, but efforts to widen readership in Northern Nigeria could not ignore the importance of Hausa.
This was part of a much older publishing question.
Who should books be written for? Which languages should publishers use? How cheaply could books be produced? How could they be distributed beyond major urban centres? Could publishers build a large enough market to sustain continued publication?
Northern Nigerian institutions had been confronting such questions decades before the American paperback programme reached Kano.
A Written Culture Long Before 1969
Northern Nigeria possessed sophisticated traditions of writing alongside its important oral traditions.
Arabic scholarship had deep roots in the region. Muslim scholars produced and copied manuscripts for religious instruction, jurisprudence, theology, history and other areas of learning.
Hausa was also written in Ajami, using an adapted form of Arabic script. Hausa Ajami developed into an important literary tradition and was used for religious writings, poetry, correspondence and other forms of written communication.
The nineteenth-century intellectual environment associated with the Sokoto Caliphate further encouraged scholarship in Arabic and African languages written in Arabic script.
Roman-script Hausa publishing expanded considerably during the colonial period.
In 1930, the Northern Nigerian administration established a Translation Bureau. Its work developed into the Literature Bureau, which became involved in producing material for Hausa readers as well as educational publications.
The history of these institutions later became closely connected with the Gaskiya Corporation.
One of the landmark developments was the appearance of the Hausa newspaper Gaskiya Ta Fi Kwabo in 1939. Newspapers, textbooks, literary works and other printed materials subsequently became increasingly important elements of twentieth-century Hausa public culture.
The 1969 exhibition therefore entered a region with both manuscript and print traditions already firmly established.
NORLA and the Expansion of Northern Nigerian Publishing
Perhaps the clearest example of organised publishing before the Kano World of Paperbacks Exhibition was the Northern Region Literature Agency, commonly known as NORLA.
NORLA was established in 1954 with support from the Northern Regional Government.
A contemporary account published in the journal Africa in 1959 described an extensive system for producing and distributing newspapers, magazines and books.
NORLA published newspapers in several languages, including Hausa, Fulfulde, Kanuri, Nupe, Tiv, Igala, Idoma and Yoruba. It also produced educational publications, Hausa plays, travel books and other reading materials.
Distribution was central to its work. Agents operated across the provinces, helping publications move beyond printing centres into towns and communities throughout the Northern Region.
NORLA demonstrated that the challenge facing Northern Nigerian publishing was not simply the absence of books.
Publishers needed affordable production, functioning distribution networks and enough readers willing and able to purchase what they produced.
These economic pressures eventually became serious.
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The Difficult Economics of Affordable Reading
Scholar Graham Furniss has identified the economics of book production as one of the enduring problems in the history of Roman-script Hausa publishing.
Publishers faced a difficult cycle.
A large reading public was hard to develop without a regular supply of inexpensive, readable and attractive books. Yet producing those books on a continuing basis required a sufficiently large commercial market.
NORLA published a substantial proportion of Hausa books during the 1950s, but its losses eventually became unsustainable.
The experience demonstrated why the paperback format could appear attractive in the 1960s.
Reducing production and transport costs could help make books more affordable. But cheaper printing could not resolve every problem.
Readers still needed access to shops, schools or libraries. Publishers needed distribution networks. Students required books appropriate to their education. Language remained crucial, particularly where potential readers were more comfortable with Hausa than English.
The history of the paperback in Kano must therefore be understood as part of a much longer debate about the economics of knowledge.
Books as Instruments of Cold War Diplomacy
The American involvement added another dimension.
USIA had been established in 1953 to conduct United States information and cultural activities overseas. Abroad, its operations were generally carried out under the name United States Information Service, or USIS.
USIA and USIS were therefore parts of the same American public diplomacy structure rather than separate organisations.
During the Cold War, books became important instruments of cultural influence.
Governments recognised that international relationships were shaped not only through formal diplomacy and military alliances, but also through education, broadcasting, libraries, exhibitions, films, academic exchanges and publications.
USIA operated information centres and libraries overseas, distributed publications and organised cultural programmes intended to increase knowledge of the United States.
The World of Paperbacks fitted naturally within this wider strategy.
The agency wanted more people to read books. It also welcomed increased demand for American publications.
A Nigerian student could benefit intellectually from an affordable American book while American officials viewed the wider circulation of that book as beneficial to the United States’ international cultural presence.
Education and diplomacy could therefore operate simultaneously.
Why the Kano Exhibition Mattered
The Kano World of Paperbacks Exhibition gains its greatest historical significance when placed within the longer histories surrounding it.
It was not the beginning of written culture in Northern Nigeria. Arabic scholarship, Hausa Ajami, newspapers and Roman-script Hausa books all preceded it.
It did not create the idea of publishing for Hausa readers. Northern Nigerian literary institutions had already spent decades producing and distributing books and newspapers.
The American involvement also belonged to a wider system of United States cultural diplomacy that combined educational, commercial and foreign-policy interests.
The exhibition brought these different histories into contact.
The paperback represented the promise of cheaper and more portable books.
Hausa publishing raised the question of linguistic accessibility.
Kano’s educational institutions represented efforts to expand learning in a recently created state.
USIA represented a foreign government using books as part of an international cultural programme.
Together, these elements turned an apparently simple book exhibition into a window on some of the most important questions surrounding education and publishing in post-independence Nigeria.
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Conclusion
The Kano World of Paperbacks Exhibition of 1969 belongs within a Nigerian literary history that was already old, diverse and continuously changing.
Kano did not require an American exhibition to acquire a written culture. The region possessed manuscript traditions, Islamic scholarship, Hausa Ajami and decades of modern print publishing before the paperback programme appeared.
What remained difficult was widening access.
Books needed to be affordable. They needed to reach readers beyond major publishing centres. They needed to appear in languages that readers could understand. Publishers also needed a commercial environment strong enough to sustain continued production.
The American paperback programme entered that existing conversation during an important moment in Nigerian history.
Kano State was young. Nigeria was at war. Hausa remained a major language of public communication. International cultural diplomacy was expanding during the Cold War.
The exhibition therefore represented more than the display of inexpensive books. It reflected an enduring struggle over who could read, what they could read, which languages reached the printed page and how ideas travelled between societies.
Author’s Note
The central lesson of the Kano paperback story is that access to knowledge depends on more than placing books on shelves. Northern Nigeria already possessed rich traditions of Arabic scholarship, Hausa Ajami, newspapers and modern publishing long before 1969. The deeper challenge was making books affordable, accessible and meaningful to wider audiences while sustaining the institutions that produced and distributed them. The World of Paperbacks exhibition added an international dimension to that older Nigerian discussion about language, education, publishing and the circulation of ideas.
References
United States Department of State, Office of the Historian. “U.S. Information Agency Activities to Carry Out President Johnson’s New Initiatives in the Field of International Education,” 31 January 1968. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1917–1972, Volume VII: Public Diplomacy, 1964–1968, Document 175.
Paden, John N. Religion and Political Culture in Kano. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973.
Nigeria Year Book 1973. Kano State Cabinet listing, Ministry of Education: Alhaji Muhtari Sarkin Bai.
“The Northern Region Literature Agency, Nigeria.” Africa, Vol. 29, No. 1, January 1959, p. 86. International African Institute.
Furniss, Graham. “Documenting Kano ‘Market’ Literature.” Africa Bibliography 1998. International African Institute.
Furniss, Graham. Poetry, Prose and Popular Culture in Hausa. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press for the International African Institute, 1996.
United States National Archives and Records Administration. Records of the United States Information Agency, Record Group 306.
East, R. M. “Recent Activities of the Literature Bureau, Zaria, Northern Nigeria.” Africa. International African Institute.
