The theme of the conference is about the flow of technology, missionaries and merchants brought printing to African countries. The development of print culture was dispersed and intensified by the advent of colonisation. This two-day colloquium will focus on the interplay between colonial interventions and local textual cultures. Presentations will explore the ways in which books and the book trade have been shaped by Africa's colonial and postcolonial history, and how print cultures developed across the continent in the context of wide-scale European colonisation. The history of the book in the context of apartheid South Africa and ‘colonisation’ which is seen as an ongoing practice, and its power dynamics and implications for current print culture will also be explored. Postgraduate students as well as established researchers will have the opportunity to speak.