October 29, 2007
Found in translation: New press brings world
literature to English readers
Chad Post (left), director of the University’s new Open Letter press, is joined by Nathan Furl (center), art and operations manager, and E.J. Van Lanen (right), senior editor. Post will moderate a roundtable discussion on November 5 to examine the impact the book business has on how readers perceive and think about literature from the Americas.
Imagine a literary landscape without Vladimir
Nabokov’s Lolita or Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. For Chad Post, that possibility is what drives his
passion for literary translation and what has brought him to Rochester
as director of Open Letter, the University’s new publishing
house.
Former associate director of Dalkey Archive Press,
Post says Open Letter is one of only a handful of presses in the United
States exclusively dedicated to identifying and publishing literature from
around the world written by authors with fresh literary voices.
“We’re really looking to publish lasting,
serious literature, the kind that should be discussed and read as widely as
possible,” says Post. “Our mission is to reach readers,
cultivate new readers, and make literature available, while benefiting
students here in Rochester at the same time.”
The press recently finalized its fall 2008 book list
with a lineup that includes authors from Croatia, Brazil, Iceland,
Lithuania, Norway, and France. The first book, Nobody’s Home, is scheduled
for publication in September 2008. Written by a Croatian exile and one
of Europe’s most respected writers, Dubravka Ugresic, the book is
a collection of witty essays that offer an intimate look at life in exile.
Post says the first six titles and the diversity in
their style and cultural point of view illustrate the broad range of
literary talent he hopes to bring to English-reading audiences.
The press’s senior editor, E.J. Van Lanen, says
finding the books is the easy part. The challenge, he explains, is
winnowing down the more than 40 submissions a week to 12 titles a year.
“There are so many great books out there, so
many that we could be publishing. It really comes down to tough
choices.”
For Post, the decision on which books to publish is
really a gut-level, emotional response as a reader.
“It’s all about pure love. We pick books
that are amazing, mind blowing, so good that they deserve to be read by all
sorts of people for years to come. They are books that need to be studied
in classes and introduced to a new generation of students. Written by
writers who need to be heard, all of these books have an element of
surprise and invention. Every one of them is unique in some fashion. The
authors are all doing something that seems risky and new,” says Post.
Post says in recent years a new model of literary
publishing has started to emerge, and small presses, such as Open Letter,
are playing a significant role in bringing authors from around the world to
an increasingly global audience.
“While commercial presses are often constrained
by profit margins, small presses are more nimble and, thanks to endowments
and private funding, can focus less on the bottom line. The very notion
that the work of small presses is lasting, important, and valuable is
becoming more and more recognizable.”
Post says that while Open Letter is an example of
this new publishing model in action, its close relationship with the
University sets it apart from its peers.
“Most nonprofit presses exist on their own as an
entity that ends up at universities with special arrangements. In this
case, Open Letter organically came out of the things that are going on here
at the University within the humanities and all the international and
translation initiatives. We’re seamlessly integrated into the
mission of the University and work really well within the structure,
including as a key resource in the developing academic programs in literary
translation. I know of only one other press that operates similarly as part
of a university. You could say that this is an experiment of sorts, one we
hope will be very successful.”
On Monday, November 5, Post will moderate a panel
discussion titled “Commerce and Culture: The Impact of the Business
of Books on the Literature of the Americas” from 3:30 to 5 p.m. in
Schlegel Hall 309. Panelists include Lisa Dillman, translator from Spanish
and a professor at Emory University; Jack Kirchhoff, a book review editor
and paperbacks columnist for Toronto’s Globe & Mail; Daniel Shapiro,
director of literature at the Americas Society and editor of Review; and Jonathon Welch,
cofounder and buyer at Talking Leaves Books, an independent bookstore in
Buffalo that specializes in distinctive literature. The roundtable is
sponsored by the Humanities Project and is an overlapping event for two of
this year’s projects—“Open Letter” and
“Reimagining the Americas: Cultures, Identities, Formations and
Transformations.”
“While it’s still an uphill battle for
small publishers, there are exciting things happening, as this group of
panelists will attest,” says Post. “Publishers really are
reimagining the Americas in some sense by finding new authors with new
voices. There’s an amazing amount of literary talent out there. No
matter how well versed you are, there’s always more to
discover.”
Open Letter—Fall 2008 Book List
Nobody’s Home
By Dubravka Ugresic, a Croatian exile living in
Amsterdam. After the outbreak of the war in 1991 in former Yugoslavia,
Ugresic wrote critically about nationalism and the travesty of war. She was
labeled a traitor and left Croatia in 1993. This collection of witty
stories offers life from the exile’s point of view.
The Taker and Other Stories
By Rubem Fonseca, a Brazilian author who was one of
the first to write about the reality of urban life in Rio. His gritty style
is considered groundbreaking for Brazilian writers, where the
pastoral setting has in recent decades reigned supreme. Few English translations of Fonesca’s works are available today.
pastoral setting has in recent decades reigned supreme. Few English translations of Fonesca’s works are available today.
The Pets
By Bragi Olafsson, a young Icelandic writer who also
forged a notable musical career as the former bassist for the Sugarcubes,
the first band of Icelandic superstar Bjork. Olafsson’s work is a
quirky, cinematic novel, much of which takes place with the main character
trapped under his bed hiding from his “friends” who have
invaded his living room.
Vilnius Poker
By Ricardas Gavelis of Lithuania. The translator of
this novel felt so strongly about the work that she translated the entire
novel without a contract and sent it to Open Letter. The book is one of a
handful of Lithuanian novels to be translated into English in the past
decade. An intensely imaginative and creatively structured novel,
it’s considered by many to be one of Lithuania’s greatest
literary works.
The Conqueror
By Jan Kjaerstad of Norway. This book is the second in
a trilogy featuring the fictional TV personality Jonas Wergeland, a famed
Norwegian documentary producer who, for reasons left unexplained at the end
of the previous novel, The Seducer, has murdered his wife. Kjaerstad was the recipient of the
Nordic Prize for Literature in 2001.
The Sailor from Gibraltar
By Marguerite Duras, the late French author and
filmmaker known for her autobiographical work translated into English as The Lover. Open Letter is
reprinting The Sailor from Gibraltar, an expansive novel about a women living on a yacht,
traveling the world looking for her lost lover.
On the Web—Three Percent
Open Letter operates an online resource that focuses
on international literature. The site features a weblog, with news from
around the literary world, and a review and sample translation section that
highlights literary works that have not yet been published in English.
The Web site is a space for translation students to
present their work and reviews, and for editors and translators to
encounter works they may not have discovered otherwise.
Contact Open Letter
For more information on the press, contact Chad Post
at chad.post@rochester.edu or 276-3687.
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