ABSTRACT: People looking for work in cities are immersed in English as
the lingua franca of the mobile phone and the urban hustle – more
effective instigations to reading than decades of work by traditional
publishers and development agencies. The legal publishing industry
campaigns to convince people to scorn pirates and plagiarists as
a criminal underclass, and to instead purchase copyrighted, barcoded
works that have the look of legitimacy about them. They work with
development industry officials to “foster literacy” – meaning to grow
the legal book trade as a contributor to national economic health, and
police what and how the newly literate read. But harried cash-strapped
audiences will read what and how they can, often outside of formal
economies, and are increasingly turning to mobile phone platforms that
sell texts at a fraction of the price of legally printed books.
Series: Cambridge elements. Elements in publishing and book culture; Variation: Cambridge elements.; Elements in publishing and book culture