Tsehai Publishers

History

Tsehai Publishers was founded in 1998 by Elias Wondimu, an Ethiopian exiled journalist. In September 1994, he left his country to participate the Twelfth International Ethiopian Studies conference at Michigan State University in East Lansing, but his three weeks travel became indefinite. Later that year, he joined the Ethiopian Review magazine in Los Angeles, serving as managing editor for the next six years. In these years, he worked with many scholars, political activists and public intellectuals on issues of local and global interest.

Passionate about Ethiopian and African issues, Wondimu saw a void in the American book market. Books on Ethiopia were few and scattered among various publishers, and those books that were available in the market were spreading poisonous seeds of ignorance and hatred. He found that he had questions for which the current literature had no answers, and the ones that did were out of print. Frustrated of waiting for change in the publishing world, and not wanting another generation to experience the same troubles, Wondimu decided to take matters into his own hands. He determined to publish books that would heal the wounds of ignorance, and restore the state of the publishing industry.

In 1997 he founded Tsehai, meaning “the sun,” named after and dedicated to his mother who had passed away the same year. Building the publishing house, he saw Tsehai not as an end but as a means so that knowledge would be accessible to new generations of readers. In 1998, the first book was published, and from 1998¬–2001 Wondimu focused on distributing scarce books that were not readily available in the market. In 2000 he joined UCLA as assistant editor of an academic journal. Through this position, he discovered the pressing need to give a platform to a community of minority scholars, giving them a venue and circulating their scholarship among the general population.

In 2001, Wondimu left his job and began running Tsehai full time. Since then Tsehai has published over 50 books, started an academic journal, which is now available in JSTOR and founded three imprints. In 2002, Heinemann, the leading publisher of African literature, ceased to publish its famous ‘African Writers Series’. In a time when the publishing industry was consolidating, Tsehai stepped up to fill this void in a very small way through its African Academic Press imprint. In 2005, Tsehai was named one of the leading publishing entities in Los Angeles by LA Weekly newspaper, one of the largest circulated newspapers west of the Mississippi. Later, in 2007, Tsehai joined the Marymount Institute and relocated to Loyola Marymount University, where it founded the first press for the university.

Going forward, Wondimu still retains his original passion, and aim to produce knowledge for the next generation, and Tsehai continually works to reflect that genuine desire. Through its books, journals and imprints, Tsehai endeavors to encourage the acquisition of knowledge, and to bring quality to the publishing industry for many generations to come.