Arif Ali (publisher)
| Arif Ali | |
|---|---|
| Born |
13 March 1935 Danielstown, British Guiana |
| Nationality | Guyanese |
| Occupation | Publisher |
| Known for | Hansib Books |
Arif Ali (born 13 March 1935) is a Guyanese-born publisher and newspaper proprietor who migrated to London in 1957. The company he founded in 1970, Hansib, was among pioneering publishers in the UK — others being New Beacon Books (1966) and Bogle-L'Ouverture (1968) — that disseminated publications of relevance to Britain's black community. Hansib went on to become the largest black publisher in Europe.
One of seven children, Arif Ali was born in Danielstown, on the Essequibo coast, British Guiana (now Guyana); two of his grandparents were Indian indentured labourers, but by the time of his birth the family had become wealthy landowners.
After graduating from high school in Georgetown, Ali left on 12 August 1957 for London, intending to study economics, and arrived at Victoria Station on 3 September. He initially worked at different jobs, including on the buses and as a porter in a hospital — where in 1958 he met a young English nurse named Pamela who three months later became his wife.
In 1966 Ali started to run a greengrocer's in Tottenham Lane, an area with a significant Caribbean population in north London, and before long, as Carolyn Cooper notes, "his business place became a vibrant cultural centre". One of the few outlets for Caribbean provisions such as yams, plantains and cassava, the shop also sold newspapers brought in from such Caribbean countries as Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados: "The newspapers served to connect West Indians in the diaspora with their respective home territories."
Ali progressed from this to producing on a Gestetner machine a cheaply priced compilation of articles called The Westindian, a venture that proved successful. He sold the food shop and in 1970 founded Hansib Publications — named after his parents, Haniff and Nasibun (Sibby) — specifically to cater for this readership and in April 1971 the company published The Westindian Digest, a magazine for Britain's West Indian communities. In 1973 Hansib published its first book, edited by Ali and entitled Westindians in Great Britain. New editions of this "Who's Who" came out in subsequent years, and with the fifth edition in 1982, the name of the publication was changed to Third World Impact.
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