New Voices was one of the mission-sponsored publications published by Glen Bays. The anthology that appears on this website dates from July, 1972. It is written in Pidgin and English and contains about 14 legal-sized mimeographed pages. The New Voices anthologies contained original stories, oral texts, poems, and devotional items and were the result of workshops conducted in schools and colleges. As soon as they were printed and distributed, they were used as teaching materials.
Ephemera such as this are important for the history of print culture in the colonies. They represent the wide-range of texts that were available to the average person but which are largely unaccounted for in academic study. Another feature of such texts is the means of production. In the case of Glen Bays’ publications, money had been made available by the World Council of Churches for his periodicals to be published professionally by Kristen Pres; but a disagreement about content had prevented him from access to those funds. He then resorted to what was available, which was a gestetner machine. These portable and inexpensive machines allowed for “publishing,” especially in rural areas, in a great many colonies.
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Updated October 13 2016 by Library Services