Fountain to hold Rwanda authors competition

Fountain Publishers, a Uganda-based regional publishing firm, is planning to hold an authors’ writing competition in Rwanda. Fountain Publishers is one of East Africa’s leading publishing houses with over 1,000 titles in school textbooks, academic, general, fiction, tourism, children and local language books. The remarks were made by the managing director, James Tumusiime, during celebrations to mark the 25th anniversary of the publishing firm. “We shall hold an authors’ competition in Rwanda next year as one sure way of increasing on the number of authors,” he said. Tumusiime said that Fountain Publishers remains fully committed to publishing school and outside school books in Rwanda to give readers exciting reading materials. The ceremony was also used to launch James Tumusiime’s new book, ‘What makes Africans Laugh, a book that exposes the damage Africans have been doing to their culture and wellbeing. Uganda’s Vice President Edward Kiwanuka Ssekandi, the Guest of honour at the event underscored that authoring books needs time and patience to carry out research. Alex Bangirana, a former publishing manager at Fountain Publishers said that publishing gives a chance to Africans to record their history and culture thereby putting them in a better place to tell their own stories. “This business requires heavy investment because all the skilled people need to be paid, yet nobody is willing to lend money to the publishing business that owns no physical collateral,” Bangirana said.