Members of the list may be interested in the following announcement for a
public event and new online publication:
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At 6:30pm on Wednesday, 9 July 2014, the George Padmore Institute (GPI) in
London, UK, will celebrate the launch of a new online publication: *‘New
Beacon Books – The Pioneering Years’. *Dr Ruth Bush will introduce her
research, situating Britain’s first black publishing house and bookshop
within a broader history of radical publishing, black diasporic writing and
post-colonial British and Caribbean politics.
The publication is available now via the GPI website (
www.georgepadmoreinstitute.org) and the seminar will take place at the
Institute, 76 Stroud Green Road, London N4 3EN, a short walk from Finsbury
Park underground station. All are welcome.
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*‘New Beacon Books – The Pioneering Years’*
As part of the George Padmore Institute’s Heritage Lottery Funded Dream to
Change the World Project <http://www.georgepadmoreinstitute.org/projects>,
Dr. Ruth Bush has undertaken an original and valuable piece of research on
the early origins of New Beacon Books, the UK’s first black publishing
house and book shop. Central to this study is John La Rose, founder of New
Beacon, who was able to commission many of New Beacon’s publications
through his close personal contacts and friendships with a number of
writers.
Between September 2012 and September 2013, Ruth carried out interviews and
researched the early correspondence and publication files held in the
George Padmore Institute archive, which reveal much about the history of
why New Beacon was created and how it was realised and sustained. The
results of this research are now available for all to read via the George
Padmore Institute website, in the form of an essay, 16 individual book
profiles, a Who’s Who gallery and a timeline, all published under the title New
Beacon Books - the pioneering years
<http://www.georgepadmoreinstitute.org/the-pioneering-years>. The work
covers the first ten years of New Beacon Books.
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Dr. Ruth Bush completed her doctoral research on francophone African
literature at Wolfson College, Oxford. She has a BA in English and French
(Oxford) and an MSc in Literature and Transatlanticism (Edinburgh). Before
pursuing postgraduate research, Ruth worked for publishing houses in France
and Argentina. Ruth is currently a Research Fellow in French and
Francophone Studies at the University of Westminster. Her areas of research
and teaching are African literature, publishing history and material
cultures of the book. She will take up a lectureship at the University of
Bristol in September 2014, and her first book, *Publishing Africa in French*,
will be published in 2015.
The George Padmore Institute (GPI) is an archive, educational research and
information centre housing materials relating mainly to the black community
of Caribbean, African and Asian descent in Britain and continental Europe.
For more information please contact: The George Padmore Institute, 76
Stroud Green Road, London N4 3EN. Phone: 020 7272 8915. E-mail:
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