Odufa: a Lover’s Tale by Othuke Ominiabohs.Photograph: Handout
His kidney failure was later cured by a transplant, and his literary ambitions led him to found Masobe Books, one of Nigeria’s fastest-growing independent publishers.
Initially he spent two months driving across Nigeria, his car boot full of his novels, visiting bookshops he found on Google, begging them to stock copies, and organising readings. Within a year his first book, Odufa, had sold 2,000 copies and he was receiving requests for more.
Masobe Books publishes titles by emerging Nigerian writers and is finding demand for new African voices. Photograph: Fred Harter
Ominiabohs was also getting calls from other writers, seeking advice on self-publishing. “I came across some very solid manuscripts and it dawned on me there was a gap in the market,” he says. The established publishers “were looking outwards, not inwards”, reprinting books already published in the west, “which left local writers struggling to get their voices heard”.
Ominiabohs started Masobe – which means “let us read” in the Isoko language – in 2018 with a $7,000 (£5,600) loan from his sister. In doing so, he joined a wave of new independent African publishers nurturing emerging African writers and getting fresh, exciting literature to African readers.
Masobe Books has achieved impressive growth. In 2024, it sold nearly 60,000 copies of 41 titles, up from 28,000 copies of 28 titles in 2023. This year Ominiabohs expects to shift at least 80,000 copies and build on revenues of more than $1m over the past four years.
The sales reflect a thirst for literature among Nigerians, who for a long time had limited options, says Ominiabohs. “When we started our first print run, other publishers advised to print a small run – not more than 200 copies, ‘because books don’t sell here’,” he says. “I knew that wasn’t true from my own experience. So we printed 1,000 copies of several books, and they sold out in six months.”
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Although Masobe Books acquires rights to distribute international hits by Nigerian authors in Nigeria, its main focus is publishing original work. The themes vary. Novels from northern Nigeria, beset by Islamist insurgency, are more fantastical, whereas the west produces more historical and romantic fiction.
“Nigeria is a very unique country. There’s a lot going on in the economy, politics. Our daily lives can be tough, and this is reflected in the stories we get. It’s possible those northern authors, in their writing, are looking for escape.”
