KABUL (SW) – Publication of book, literary exhibitions and libraries were witnessing a boom during the republic, but all that sounds like a dream from a distant past now.
In the last couple of years, the book market has lost its boom and most of the book publishers are facing the risk of bankruptcy due to not printing the books and not selling the books.
Iqbal Azam of the Azam Publications told Salam Watandar that during the republic period, he published more than 100 books by local authors and printed five thousand book covers daily. But in the last two years, he has not published any book. He added: “Our printing house has been closed for two years and our publishing department is inactive. Only our sales department is active and we don’t sell even one volume of book every day,” he said. He added he lost and sold hundreds of his book titles for paper weight only.
In the conversations we had with the officials of six book publications in Kabul city, some of them have not published any books after the fall of the republic, and some have only published university textbooks in a limited way. Due to the slump in the book selling market, Zaman Karimi of the Saadat publications said their activities have been limited and they had to close one of the book selling agencies in Kabul city last year. He added: “We had 16 employees, and due to the lack of sales, we dismissed 10 of them, all of whom worked in the sales department.”
Saadat publication published 20 books with a circulation of nearly two thousand during the republican period. But in the last two years, it has not published even one book title. Karimi said that now 30,000 titles in 10,000,000 volumes are placed on the shelves, which has no buyers.
Most of the publications are afraid of being closed due to lack of customers.
Munir Stanekzai, the managing director of “Amiri” publication, said that this publication published 350 books with thousands of copies before the fall of the republic, but in the last two years, it has published only 50 books. He complained about this situation: “The number of our book publishing contracts is very low. The textbook printing market has also reached its lowest point.”
According to Stankzai, this publication has lost its regular customers, most of whom were employees of the previous government, in the last two years. In the middle of the stagnation of the book printing and sales market, special children’s publications have also lost their previous prosperity and are facing the risk of bankruptcy.
Sohrab Omar, the manager of “Baran” magazine, who has worked in the children’s book department for more than 12 years, said that after the closure of the foreign aid organizations that bought a large part of the books printed in this magazine and sent them to the provinces, the volume of the Baran magazine’s print volume has decreased. . “So far, we have published 80 children’s book titles,” he added. “Now the amount of book printing is very low.”
Omar said that he plans to print several books, most of which are children’s books, but due to the lack of buyers and financial resources, these books have not been published. All six publications interviewed in this report have called the last two years the most difficult years for the book printing and selling market in the last two decades.
Officials at the Afghanistan Publishers Union say that after the Covid pandemic and the fall of the republic, the book printing and sales market in Afghanistan has decreased by 90%. Seyed Ahmad Saeed, head of the Afghanistan Publishers Union and head of Saeed magazine, told Salam Watandar that 10% of the magazines have stopped printing, and nearly 50% of the magazines have financial problems and are going to be bankrupt.
According to the statistics of the Ministry of Information and Culture, 95 government public libraries operate in 34 provinces, of which 10 libraries in six districts of Kabul provide services to citizens with 120,000 books. Public libraries operating under the supervision of the Ministry of Information and Culture. They have lost 20% of their visitors in the last two years.
Fathullah Wafi, the head of the central libraries of Afghanistan’s Public Libraries Directorate, said that the lack of newly printed and electronic books is one of the challenges that affects the number of visitors to public libraries. He added: “A large number of young people who come, request the new books they need, we also make a note to buy them and solve the problems of our clients.”
Managers for all six private publications that were interviewed in this report said the lack of motivation of young people and ban imposed on female students as the main reasons for the decline in the book printing and sales market.
ENDS
