Khumbulani Muleya (KM): Andrew, readers know you as a novelist and cultural critic. Why did this feel like the right moment to found Friesian Publishing?
Andrew Chatora (AC): Friesian Publishing grew out of both conviction and experience. Over the years, as a writer, I came to understand that many exceptional manuscripts struggle to find a serious home, especially when they do not fit fashionable market expectations. I wanted to create more than a business. I wanted to build a literary space: an independent press committed to work of depth, originality and staying power. In that sense, founding Friesian Publishing is not a departure from literature. It is an extension of my commitment to it.
I wanted to create more than a business. I wanted to build a literary space: an independent press committed to work of depth, originality and staying power
KM: Some may ask the obvious question: are you hanging up the writer’s jacket in order to become a publisher?
AC: Not at all. I have not abandoned the writer’s pen; I have widened its responsibility. This is not a renunciation of writing but an expansion of my literary vocation. I remain a writer, but I also want to build a serious home for other writers. If anything, becoming a publisher has deepened my respect for writing and for the vulnerability involved in sending work into the world.
KM: You have described the press as more than a publishing venture, almost as a literary intervention. What do you mean by that?
AC: I mean that very deliberately. I do not see publishing merely as the production of books. I see it as a way of shaping the conditions in which literature can breathe more freely. Too often, literary culture becomes narrow, overly commercial, overly trend-driven, or too dependent on inherited gatekeeping. Friesian Publishing is my attempt to widen that space and make room for voices, experiences and imaginations that might otherwise be overlooked.
I see publishing as a way of shaping the conditions in which literature can breathe more freely and Friesian Publishing is an attempt to widen that space and make room for overlooked voices, experiences and imaginations
KM: You have spoken strongly about supporting underrepresented voices. How do you do that without falling into tokenism?
AC: By insisting, first and foremost, on literary seriousness. Supporting underrepresented voices does not mean reducing writers to demographic categories or publishing them as gestures of virtue. It means recognising that brilliance often exists outside the centres of cultural power. We want to support overlooked writers because their work matters, because it has craft, originality, depth and artistic force.
KM: Is Friesian Publishing mainly for emerging writers, or do you also want established names and literary agents to take notice?
AC: Very much both. I am deeply interested in exceptionally talented, little-known writers who deserve a platform and a readership. But I am equally open to working with established writers, literary agents and fellow creatives whose work aligns with our ethos. A healthy independent press should be a meeting place: somewhere new and established voices can coexist, challenge one another, and enrich the catalogue.
KM: One of the most compelling parts of your public philosophy is the refusal to reduce literature to labels. Why is that so important to you?
AC: Because literature diminishes when it becomes over-managed by categories. Categories can be useful in practical publishing, but they should never become prisons. Too often, writers are told their work is too literary, too political, too African, not African enough, too hybrid, or too difficult to shelve. I reject that mindset. Our remit is broad, and we do not want to box ourselves into rigid categorisations. We are interested in books that carry intellectual force, emotional truth and artistic distinction.
KM: What kind of books and manuscripts truly excite you?
AC: I am drawn to manuscripts with clarity of voice, narrative ambition and intellectual depth. I respond to work that is emotionally honest without becoming sentimental, politically aware without becoming didactic, and culturally grounded without becoming reductive. We are especially attentive to literary fiction and memoir that engage questions of identity, migration, belonging, history, memory and power, but always through art rather than slogan. Above all, I want books that endure.
Friesian Publishing is especially attentive to literary fiction and memoir that engage questions of identity, migration, belonging, history, memory and power… stories and books that endure
KM: Why the name Friesian? And what does the Friesian horse emblem mean to you?
AC: The Friesian horse is central to our identity. It has long been associated with strength, poise, elegance and endurance, qualities I believe serious literature should embody. I wanted an emblem that suggested not noise or trendiness, but presence, stamina and grace. For me, it symbolises the kind of books we want to publish: books that are fearless in their ideas, exacting in their craft, and capable of standing the test of time. The emblem is not decorative branding. It is a statement of literary philosophy.
KM: Your own literary journey clearly informs this venture. What makes your career a strong foundation for launching an independent press?
AC: I believe it matters that I am coming to publishing from inside literature rather than from a purely corporate distance. My work as a novelist and cultural critic has required me to think seriously about craft, editorial judgement, literary history, and the wider social life of books. I understand the vulnerability of submitting a manuscript, the discipline of revision, and the importance of editorial trust. A writer-led press can offer a different kind of attention: rigorous, certainly, but also humane.
KM: What do you say to the unknown but gifted Zimbabwean or African writer who feels the industry was never designed with them in mind?
AC: I would say very clearly: do not mistake lack of access for lack of value. The literary world has always had gatekeepers, but it has also always been transformed by writers who arrived from the margins and changed the centre. Friesian Publishing exists, in part, to help make that journey more possible. If your work is serious, original and alive, we want to encounter it. Our submissions window is currently open, and I warmly invite writers to consult the submissions page on our website.
KM: Finally, if we revisit this conversation in five years, what would you hope Friesian Publishing has become?
AC: I would hope it will be recognised as a respected independent literary press known for publishing books that matter. I would hope we will have discovered important new voices, supported writers who might otherwise have remained unheard, and also worked with established authors whose books found in us a fitting home. Above all, I would want people to say that Friesian Publishing stood for something, that it published work of depth, courage and lasting value.
With the launch of Friesian Publishing, Andrew Chatora is not stepping away from literature but widening its field of possibility. If his ambition is realised, the imprint will become more than a new independent press: it will be a carefully built literary home for bold writing, editorial seriousness and books of lasting consequence. In an age often driven by speed, trend and noise, Friesian Publishing proposes something rarer: patience, discernment and literary endurance.
Editorial note: Friesian Publishing is currently open to submissions in literary fiction and memoir. Details: www.friesianpublishing.com
This interview originally appeared in The Standard and it is republished here with the permission of the publisher and writer. No changes were made to the original article.
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