# Onitsha Market Pamphlets

> Cheap, stapled pamphlets of romance, advice, drama and political biography, written by students, clerks, journalists and traders and printed by jobbing letterpress shops around Onitsha Main Market in eastern Nigeria from the late 1940s. Covers did the selling at the stall: long moralising titles in mixed jobbing type, the price and the author's pen-name, and recycled photographs on coloured card. The trade lost its presses in the Nigeria–Biafra War and revived only briefly afterwards.

- Period: 1947–1980
- Where: Sub-Saharan Africa
- Origin: Bookseller-publishers and jobbing printers around Onitsha Main Market, eastern Nigeria, distributed across Nigeria and anglophone West Africa
- Branch: Traditions & vernacular
- Also known as: Onitsha market literature, Nigerian chapbooks, Nigerian pulp pamphlets
- Page: https://stylogeny.com/styles/onitsha-market-literature/

## How it works

- Put the whole pitch on the cover: a long, sensational or moralising title, a subtitle, the author's name or pen-name and the price.
- Fill the cover with a borrowed photograph or line block (a film star, model, politician or historical figure), whether or not it relates to the story, and caption it.
- Set titles centred in whatever jobbing type the printer holds, mixing faces and sizes line by line, mostly in capitals.
- Print in one or two inks on newsprint and coloured card, accepting worn type, uneven inking and typographical errors.
- Run the text dense and continuous inside, and use spare pages for the printer's and bookseller's advertisements and lists of other titles.

## Its design choices

Defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

### Layout & composition
- [Central symmetry](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/central-symmetry/) (defining)
- [Classical text block](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/classical-text-block/) (characteristic)
- [Framed panels](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/framed-panels/) (occasional)
- [Isolated object](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/isolated-object/) (occasional)

### Space & hierarchy
- [Layered information](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/layered-information/) (characteristic)
- [Horror vacui](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/horror-vacui/) (characteristic)
- [Single focal point](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/single-focal-point/) (occasional)

### Typography
- [Eclectic mixing](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/eclectic-mixing/) (defining)
- [All caps](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/all-caps/) (characteristic)
- [Grotesque & neo-grotesque](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/grotesque-and-neo-grotesque/) (characteristic)
- [Slab serif](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/slab-serif/) (occasional)
- [Ornamented display](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/ornamented-display/) (occasional)

### Colour
- [Limited spot colours](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/limited-spot-colours/) (defining)
- [Monochrome](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/monochrome/) (characteristic)
- [Flat fields](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/flat-fields/) (occasional)

### Form & shape
- [Naturalistic depiction](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/naturalistic-depiction/) (characteristic)
- [Stylised figuration](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/stylised-figuration/) (occasional)

### Surface & texture
- [Paper & letterpress bite](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/paper-and-letterpress-bite/) (defining)
- [Halftone & Ben-Day dots](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/halftone-and-ben-day-dots/) (characteristic)
- [Misregistration & overprint](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/misregistration-and-overprint/) (occasional)

### Ornament
- [Restrained accents](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/restrained-accents/) (characteristic)
- [Rules & bars](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/rules-and-bars/) (occasional)
- [Borders & frames](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/borders-and-frames/) (occasional)

### Imagery
- [Found & vernacular imagery](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/found-and-vernacular-imagery/) (defining)
- [Straight photography](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/straight-photography/) (characteristic)
- [Line illustration](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/line-illustration/) (occasional)

### Medium & production
- [Letterpress](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/letterpress/) (defining)

### Tone & intent
- [Communal & popular](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/communal-and-popular/) (defining)
- [Romantic & sensual](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/romantic-and-sensual/) (characteristic)
- [Authoritative & institutional](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/authoritative-and-institutional/) (occasional)
- [Playful & witty](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/playful-and-witty/) (occasional)

Avoids: Generous white space, Full polychrome, Gradients, Gloss & highlights, Abundant decoration, Rebellious & subversive, Ironic & self-aware

Palette: #ece3cc, #1a1a1a, #e3a0a8, #b8312f, #7fa36b

Typefaces: Jobbing grotesque and gothic capitals for cover titles, Hand-set book roman for the running text, Odd fonts of wood and metal display type held by the printer

Known for: Cyprian Ekwensi, When Love Whispers (Onitsha, late 1940s; often cited as the first pamphlet); Ogali A. Ogali, Veronica My Daughter (1956); Okenwa Olisah, The Life in the Prison Yard; Thomas Orlando Iguh, The Last Days of Lumumba; D. Nkem Akuneme, Elekere Agwo: The Quack Doctor (1964); Kurt Thometz (ed.), Life Turns Man Up and Down: High Life, Useful Advice, and Mad English (Pantheon, 2001)

## Where it comes from, and what it’s close to

- Grew out of: [Victorian Letterpress & Wood Type](https://stylogeny.com/styles/victorian-letterpress.md) (1810–1900)
- Alike in its design choices: [Mexican Popular Graphics (Posada)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/mexican-popular-graphics.md) (1880–1917), 55% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Lira Popular (Chilean Illustrated Verse Broadsheets)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/lira-popular.md) (1866–1930), 54% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Nirnaya Sagar Devanagari Typography (Bombay Metal Type)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/nirnaya-sagar-devanagari.md) (1864–present), 50% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Emblem Book (Motto, Picture & Epigram)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/emblem-book.md) (1531–1724), 49% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Drum Magazine & Sophiatown Photojournalism](https://stylogeny.com/styles/drum-magazine.md) (1951–1965), 48% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Spanish Bullfight Poster (Cartel Taurino)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/cartel-taurino.md) (1879–present), 47% alike

## Real works

- [The Last Days of Lumumba (The Late Lion of the Congo): A Drama](https://web.archive.org/web/20060905122910/http://onitsha.diglib.ku.edu/tdc/descriptions/c3302.htm): Thomas Orlando Iguh (author); A. Onwudiwe & Sons (publisher), [ca. 1961?], Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas (KU Onitsha Market Literature digital collection, archived on the Wayback Machine)
- [They Died in the Game of Love](https://web.archive.org/web/20060905122558/http://onitsha.diglib.ku.edu/tdc/descriptions/c3264.htm): Cyril Umunnah (author); Njoku & Sons (publisher), [ca. 1960], Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas (KU Onitsha Market Literature digital collection, archived on the Wayback Machine)
- [The African Bachelor's Guide and Lady's Guide (to be read before marriage and after it)](https://web.archive.org/web/20060905122740/http://onitsha.diglib.ku.edu/tdc/descriptions/c3273.htm): Cy. Diala (author); Njoku & Sons (publisher), [1963?], Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas (KU Onitsha Market Literature digital collection, archived on the Wayback Machine)
- [The Way to Make Friends with Girls](https://web.archive.org/web/20060815033450/http://onitsha.diglib.ku.edu/tdc/descriptions/c3551.htm): Adele Madumere (author); Trinity Printing Press for A. Onwudiwe & Sons, [196-] (3/6 edition, orange cover), Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas (KU Onitsha Market Literature digital collection, archived on the Wayback Machine)
- [Life Turns Man Up and Down: Money and Girls Turn Man Up and Down](https://web.archive.org/web/20060905122608/http://onitsha.diglib.ku.edu/tdc/descriptions/c3309.htm): Sunday Okenwa Olisah (author); Njoku & Sons (publisher), [1964?], Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas (KU Onitsha Market Literature digital collection, archived on the Wayback Machine)

## Sources

- Emmanuel N. Obiechina, An African Popular Literature: A Study of Onitsha Market Pamphlets (Cambridge University Press, 1973)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onitsha_Market_Literature
- https://findingaids.library.upenn.edu/records/UPENN_RBML_PUSP.PRINTCOLLECTION72 (University of Pennsylvania, Nigerian market literature collection: presses lost in the war)
- https://jot101.com/2020/01/an-onitsha-market-pamphlet/ (pink cover with recycled, captioned photograph)

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From Stylogeny (https://stylogeny.com/), an atlas of graphic-design styles by Van Riel Online Services. How it is made: https://stylogeny.com/about/. Cite as: Stylogeny, “Onitsha Market Pamphlets”, https://stylogeny.com/styles/onitsha-market-literature/