"The late Asenath Bole Odaga, one of the pioneers of women in publishing in Africa and founder of Lake Publishers & Enterprises Ltd in Kenya in 1983, in an account of her early experience as a publisher, wrote1 that she found it to be an uphill struggle initially, and was confronted by male colleagues who suggested that publishing was a complex business, best left to men, and that it might be rather more appropriate if she were to set up a restaurant instead of a publishing house! Happily, such blatantly chauvinist attitudes are now largely a thing of the past, and it would probably be true to say that much progress has been made in gender equality in African publishing in recent years. This has seen the emergence of a whole new generation of agile, visionary, and enterprising women publishers, as well as many other women who have provided leadership, and have made significant contributions in the African book world." (Abstract)