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From: yonas habtemariam (yonas.hmariam@gmail.com)
Date: Wed Nov 10 2010 - 08:26:20 EST
*Ibex African Books & Sound: Taking on African Literature and Music*
I came in contact with Ibex African Books & Sound when I bought a
translation of one of the popular books by Swedish children book writer
Astrid Lindgren “Pippi Longstocking” into Tigrinya by Fessehaye T Bahta. I
order it at their website www.ibexbook.com one Thursday afternoon and
received it the coming week. Payments were processed through PayPal without
any problem. This kind of service including product delivery in time as
promised and smooth payment arrangement by a relatively new firm is
inspiring and should be encourage by all Eritreans in Diaspora.
Ibex African Books & Sound is a new kind of breed of companies that are
started by emigrants in Sweden and in this case by two Eritrean-Swedish
entrepreneurs living in Stockholm. According to the information at the
website Ibex was reorganized in 2007 to focus in the distribution of books,
film and music by African writers, film directors and artist in west, where
the exposure is very minimal and limited to a number of writers and artist.
Ibex is fresh new comer with big and at times challenging ideas that will in
time leave some positive marks to the Swedish publishing industry.
Ibex book portfolio ranges from history, children books, art, linguistic,
poetry to tourism. Most of the books are written by Eritrean writers and it
reflects the origin of the two entrepreneurs but the ambition is to cover
African. It can be seen in the diverse works done by writers like Emanuel N
Obiechina, John Kilaka and film directors like Cheik Doukouré as well as
Sembene Ousmane. There is a collection of music too which includes
recordings from Putumayo, artists like Moa Anbessa, Habib Koite, Azieb Gebre
and Tsehaytu Beraki. The distribution of daily newspapers and magazines is
one of plans Ibex is working on and hopefully will be in place in the coming
months.
The entrepreneurs at Ibex seem to have identified the problem with access to
literature, music and film produced by African writers and artists. Their
solution is to put all the materials in a website and distribute to customer
without the costs of operating stores and its limitation to reach all. This
will give readers and consumers a great opportunity to buy books, films and
music from by African writers and artist from one place and not visit a
number of websites to buy a book and in one purchase music.
According to Ibex there are a number of books that sells a lot and their
top-10 list in books looks a follows:
* *
*Title
Writer*
Neta newih kalsa Pippi tefaltewado? Fessehaye T Bahta,
Pippi ab humlegorden Fessehaye T
Bahta
Zibin wekarian Minya
Tseggay
Aynfelale: Eritrea 1941-1950 Alemseged Tesfai
Federation Ertra mis Etiopia 1951-1955 Alemseged Tesfai
Meseretawi Agebabt Qounqua Tigrinia Sebhatu Gebremichael
MeAbul Tigrinia (Advanced Tigrinya) Sebhatu Gebremichael
Dukan Tiberh Beyene
Haile
Titsbit Bahgu Beyene
Haile
Sofia
Tekie
Beyene
I hope this inspires us to continue to visit Ibex and purchase our books and
films in the future. Because supporting this firm will give raise to other
Eritrean entrepreneurs any where else to start business that will solve
other problems that are associated with living in Diaspora.
-- Yonas Habtemariam Mobile +46 733 577 450