Family background and early years 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, England, intending to study economics, and arrived at
Victoria Station on 3 September, having travelled to Britain via the Canary Islands, Spain, Italy and France. 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.
First business ventures 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 Caribbean countries including Guyana,
Jamaica,
Trinidad and Tobago and
Barbados: "The newspapers served to connect West Indians in the diaspora with their respective home territories." 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.
Newspaper publishing Ali's career as a newspaper publisher started in 1973 with the acquisition of
West Indian World from its then owner Aubrey Baynes, who had launched the paper in mid-1971 but had become disillusioned with its financial viability. Under Ali's editorship the
West Indian World prospered, campaigning on various educational issues that were affecting black schoolchildren in Britain. Ali went on to further engage and communicate with the Caribbean, African and Asian communities by establishing the
Asian Digest (August 1980), the newspapers
Caribbean Times (1981),
Asian Times (1983) and
African Times (1985), as well as
Root magazine (1987). By the 1990s he had a staff of 140, publishing three weekly papers and two monthly magazines. The circulation of the
Caribbean Times peaked at 28,000, with average sales of about 10,000 copies.
Book publishing In 1997 Ali sold his newspapers in order to concentrate on book publishing, By the time of its 40th anniversary, in 2010, Hansib had brought out more than 200 titles, in categories encompassing politics, history, culture, sport, cookery, to multicultural literature including poetry, fiction and memoir, with claims to have for more than four decades "reflected and chronicled the achievements and struggles, the turmoils and frustrations, and the hopes and dreams of Britain's Caribbean, African and Asian communities." == See also ==