AS VISITORS crowded round Daimon Phiri's stall at the annual Zimbabwe International Book Fair, business seemed to be roaring for the fledgling publisher, but few people could afford to buy books.

"This year it's busy in terms of people visiting," Phiri, who runs Tepp Publishers in the second city of Bulawayo, said. "But the people don't have money to buy books."

He was attending to queries from a group of school pupils asking if he had anything on offer for free.

At its peak more than a decade ago, the book fair in Harare drew hundreds of exhibitors from around the world and local publishers reported brisk business, in a nation that prided itself as the most literate in Africa.

That was before a decade of economic crisis reduced many to paupers, while a political crisis isolated Zimbabwe from its former allies in the West. Now the fair is a local affair and a low-key one at that.

"Most of the visitors say they like reading, some show interest in some of the books we have on display and ask for contacts, and from my experience asking for contacts is a polite parting note but they don't get in touch," Phiri lamented.

"People are living from hand to mouth and to expect them to buy books is to expect too much," said Phiri. His company published 10 titles, including a play by a prominent local playwright, in its first two years, but only managed two publications this year.

Maxwell Mutami, a resident in the working class suburb of Chitungwiza, said while most Zimbabweans liked reading, they must choose between spending their scarce income on food or books.

"The salaries most people are earning are not enough to cover their basic needs and in such a situation a book becomes a luxury," Mutami said.

"The average price of a book is $5 and for the same amount you can buy a loaf of bread. So with $5 most of us would rather buy a loaf of bread for five days or for 10 days if it's the cheap quality."

Prayer Mutasa, a representative for College Press, a subsidiary of the international publishing group Macmillan, said sales were gradually creeping up since Zimbabwe's power-sharing government dumped the worthless local dollar and adopted the US dollar last year.

"It's better than previous years. Our advantage is that we sell school books for both primary and secondary school," Mutasa said.

"The sales of our non-academic books are still slow. For a person to buy a book they must have food on the table. A book is a second priority and a leisure books are considered a luxury."

As buyers grew scarce, many bookstores turned to selling cheap imported toys, clothes, second-hand books and greetings cards, while others pulled down the shutters.

Those still operating remain optimistic.

"We hope next year will be better," Alex Musendeki, a manager with the Roman Catholic-affiliated Mambo Press, said, like many others in the business. "A lot of people want books but they haven't got money to spare and buy books. The economy has not yet fully recovered to enable people to buy books."

Kenyan David Ronoh, among the few foreign exhibitors, said that some books he brought were sold out on the first day of the three-day fair last weekend.

"The people here like reading," said Ronoh from East African Educational Publishers, whose catalogue includes such giants as Ngugi wa Thi'ongo, Cyprian Ekwensi and Chinua Achebe.

Zimbabwe International Book Fair director Greenfield Chilongo said: "We are picking up since the dollarisation. If the trend continues the book industry will be back to where it was."

But that depends on rebuilding the economy and keeping a political truce with the unity government, neither of which are a certainty.- SAPA