On an early Tuesday aſternoon over Zoom, Busby recounts the serendipitous origins of her partnership with Greenlee. Alexis Lykiard, a friend of Busby’s husband Lionel Grigson, was living in Mykonos, Greece, when he crossed paths with a young Greenlee, who was also a resident of the cit. Greenlee had finished his manuscript and was seeking a publisher. Fate intervened when the two met, leading Lykiard to introduce Busby to Greenlee. Bold and ambitious, Busby championed the book,


providing it with a literary home at her publishing house, Allison & Busby. Busby went to great lengths to support Greenlee, even borrowing money to ensure he could stay in London while she edited the manuscript. At the time, both Busby and her co-founder Clive Allison had full time jobs at other publishers, dedicating their evenings and weekends to Allison & Busby activities. As a two-person publishing company, Margaret Busby and her co-founder operated with a sense of necessit: “We did what we had to do,” she explains. Taking on multiple roles, Busby not only edited the book but also designed its cover. When asked if she knew she was doing something important by publishing the novel, she explained they were simply doing what they believed in. Reflecting on her time running the publishing house, Busby warmly recites a sentiment she heard: “You never knew what Allison & Busby were going to be publishing, but you knew it was going to be interesting.” Busby fondly recalls her tenacit in securing coverage for the book, including her persistence in convincing the Observer to serialise the title. Despite their initial reticence, citing their policy against serialising fiction and reservations about featuring Black fiction in particular, her determination paid off, and the book found a place within the publication’s pages. Pressley, daughter of Greenlee, shares her mixed emotions regarding the reissue of her father’s novel. With a warm smile, she describes her “great feeling of joy” at her father’s legacy continuing. When I ask about her father’s intentions behind the book and their conversations about it, Pressley’s laughter fills the screen. “Sam Greenlee was a man of few words,” she says with a smile. “But he spoke his mind, and I loved that about him.” As she continues, it becomes evident that to Pressley, Greenlee was always her father first; as she puts it, “He was Daddy, he wasn’t Sam Greenlee.” However, she admits to feeling sadness that, 55 years later, the pervasive issues of institutional racism and systemic discrimination the book addresses remain urgent and unresolved societal issues. Despite being miles apart on a laptop screen, Pressley’s pride in her father’s legacy shines through, evident in her frequent smiles and occasional laughter as she reflects on his determination and unwavering love for his communit. “It was his life’s work,” she explains, “where his heart was”. Greenlee grew up in the 1930s amid the Great Depression in Chicago, where African Americans faced disproportionate suffering. Racial violence surged, and Black unemployment far exceeded that of other racial groups. Greenlee, his daughter explains, was able to find a way to navigate this challenging and tumultuous time. By all measures, Greenlee was a highly accomplished man. He earned an athletic scholarship to atend universit, graduating with a degree in political science in 1952,


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Busby went to great lengths to support Greenlee, even borrowing money to ensure he could stay in London while she edited the manuscript


and later served in the US Army. Not stopping there, he pursued further education in international relations at the Universit of Chicago. By the late 1950s, he embarked on his career with the United States Information Agency (USIA), becoming one of the pioneering Black officials to serve abroad. Greenlee was both a proud Chicagoan, and a citizen of the world. Throughout his lifetime, he travelled to and lived in numerous countries, from Ghana to Spain. Notably, one of his favourite destinations was Greece, where he wrote his iconic debut. Remarkably, he was also fluent in Greek. His internationalit was in many ways reflected in the success of The Spook Who Sat by the Door; the novel was translated into several languages and also inspired a film adaptation directed by Ivan Dixon, underscoring its global impact and appeal. Greenlee, as Pressley explains, found a means of processing his varied life experiences through writing the book, which became his way of “writing his own pain”. Pressley feels that many resonate with her father’s début because it explores relatable life experiences in their entiret, particularly the ills and systematic barriers that racism breeds. “People appreciate how this book articulates things they find difficult to express,” she shares. Pressley goes on to say that for many, The Spook Who Sat by the Door is a bedside table book, something people keep close by. She shares a term her family have since coined, “spookabilit”. Inspired by her father’s book, the term, she explains, “is a way of finding how to maximise your experiences to give back to your communit”. On the message of her father’s classic novel, Greenlee’s daughter states, “he gave us all a voice, he was courageous enough to put it down on paper and put it on film”. Describing the novel as a “parable of our time”, Busby emphasises its continued importance, particularly in its reissue this year. Like Greenlee’s daughter, Busby can’t help but acknowledge the tragedy in the book’s societal pertinence 55 years aſter she first published it. “Many things about the book are still relevant,” she laments. Busby remained friends with Sam Greenlee until his passing in 2014 and continued to support him, even assisting him with a play he was trying to bring to fruition. Together, they made history by introducing his critically acclaimed novel to the world. Busby would eventually sell his book into the American market, despite its initial rejection from publishers there. With its topical nature and even prophetic qualities at times, examining The Spook Who Sat by the Door inevitably leads to contemplating the concept of legacy. For Pressley, she hopes the book’s republication “gives people strength and courage”. For Busby, the legacy is twofold; the legacy of the book itself and the legacy of being its first publisher. She explains that within The Spook Who Sat by the Door, we find an unwavering articulation of the perennial fight for freedom, freedom in all forms and to be all things.


The Spook Who Sat by the Door by Sam Greenlee will be published by Jacaranda Books in September 2024, featuring a new introduction by Margaret Busby and afterword by Natiki Hope Pressley


NATIKI HOPE PRESSLEY


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