Irene Staunton

Irene Staunton is a Zimbabwean publisher, editor, researcher and writer, who has worked in literature and the arts since the 1970s, both in the UK and Zimbabwe. She is co-founder and publisher of Weaver Press in Harare, having previously co-founded Baobab Books.

Quotes

• I think if you’re a white Zimbabwean, you have an extra responsibility to give back if you can. My hope as a publisher for more than 30 years is that I have enabled a corpus of work proffering many different stories and points of view.
  • We rise by lifting others':outstanding women of Zimbabwe - in pictures,(December 17,2020)

"An interview with Irene Staunton" (2011)

"An interview with Irene Staunton", (February 28, 2011)

• Books open up new worlds for us emotionally, geographically, culturally; by encouraging understanding, they help us to develop more compassionate, rational, tolerant societies, giving rise to a more broad-minded world.

• For me, literature is an incredibly important way of telling the truth.

• A good writer has a sense of integrity that is hard to compromise.

• Editors are a bit like stage-hands: the play can’t go on without them, and yet their role is necessarily in the shadows. It is, however, interesting to see how many writers acknowledge their editors – the third eye is of value.