Books, language and knowledge ownership: Why publishing and copyright matter in South Africa

As the world marks World Book and Copyright Day on 23 April, I find myself reflecting on a number of issues that lie at the heart of knowledge creation, cultural preservation, and intellectual justice in South Africa.

First, I reflect on the transformative power of books. Books have long served as bridges across social, geographic, and generational divides, enabling ideas, histories, and forms of knowledge to travel across time and space. They fuel intellectual development, preserve cultural memory, and transmit values that shape societies and identities. Through books, societies record who they are, where they come from, and how they imagine their futures. In contexts marked by historical inequality and exclusion, they have also functioned as instruments of resistance, empowerment, and social change – offering readers the tools to question, imagine, and re-envision their worlds.

In this rapidly evolving digital and AI-driven era, the continuing significance of books becomes even more pronounced. While artificial intelligence accelerates the production, dissemination, and consumption of information, it often privileges speed, volume, and efficiency over depth and reflection. Books, by contrast, invite sustained engagement, critical thinking, and ethical deliberation. In a society as diverse and unequal as ours, books remain essential tools for fostering understanding, empathy, and critical thought – capacities that cannot be automated and are central to meaningful scholarship and human development. At a time when information is increasingly abundant but attention is fragmented, the book continues to offer a space for slow thinking, intellectual rigor, and humane engagement with complex social realities.

Second, I also reflect on the intellectualisation of South Africa’s indigenous languages. Publishing books in indigenous languages is not simply a cultural exercise – it is a profound intellectual and political imperative. Languages acquire power and legitimacy through use in formal domains of knowledge production, particularly in writing, research, and scholarly debate. When knowledge is produced, documented, and debated in indigenous languages, these languages get strengthened and expanded as tools of scholarship, science, philosophy and creative inquiry. Publishing, therefore, plays a critical role in this process, as it provides a durable and authoritative platform through which ideas are preserved, circulated, and contested. It plays a critical role in ensuring that indigenous languages are not confined to informal, oral or domestic spaces, but function as full intellectual languages capable of carrying complex theoretical and disciplinary knowledge – recognised as legitimate languages of teaching, research, and knowledge production.

Third, I turn my attention to the culture of reading and access to books in South Africa. The value of books cannot be separated from the conditions under which people encounter them. Reading cultures are nurtured through availability, affordability, and sustained institutional and societal support. Yet access to books remains uneven, shaped by historical inequalities, limited library infrastructure, and economic constraints. In such contexts, the absence of books in homes, schools, and community spaces limits not only literacy development, but also imagination, critical inquiry, and intellectual confidence. At a time when digital technologies and artificial intelligence promise expanded access to information, the persistence of unequal access to books reminds us that material conditions still matter. Cultivating a culture of reading and ensuring access to diverse and locally relevant texts remain fundamental to meaningful education, lifelong learning, and the development of an informed citizenry.

Fourth, I further reflect on the phrase “African Scholarship” embedded in UKZN’s vision. This phrase is a call to action. It urges Africans to take responsibility for positioning African scholarship within global conversations on our own terms. It challenges us to move beyond being mere subjects of study – trapped in the enduring narrative of “about us, without us” – and to become producers, interpreters, and owners of knowledge.  

While expanding access to knowledge is a crucial objective, this goal must be pursued alongside, the protection of authors’ rights. Protecting authors’ rights is not an act of exclusion or resistance to access however, it is an investment in the future of South African scholarship, indigenous knowledge production, and intellectual freedom.

Finally, as an author myself, I stand in solidarity with authors across South Africa. Writing is the product of sustained intellectual labour, discipline, and emotional investment, often undertaken under precarious conditions. This reality cannot be separated from the ongoing debates around authors’ rights and copyright in South Africa. Copyright is therefore not an abstract legal concern – it is directly connected to authors’ recognition, livelihoods, and control over their intellectual work. If authors cannot benefit fairly from their work or retain meaningful ownership, fewer books will be written, fewer local stories will be published, and fewer African perspectives will shape global knowledge systems. 

On this World Book and Copyright Day, we are reminded that publishing and copyright are not peripheral concerns. They are deeply intertwined with questions of justice, equity, and power – determining whose knowledge circulates, whose voices are amplified, and who ultimately benefits from intellectual labour in South Africa.

Dr Phindile Dlamini, is the Director of UKZN Press. A linguist, publisher, author, and academic, she has made significant contributions across several domains in the language and publishing space. Her expertise spans translation, editing, publishing, material development, and creative writing, with a particular focus on translation studies.