There’s a new independent publisher of literary translation in the area (with a particular interest in contemporary poetry and hybrid-genre works)!
Eulalia Books — affiliated with the undergraduate Literary Translation minor at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, PA and staffed in part by faculty and students (some of whom live in Pittsburgh proper) — selects projects among solicited and submitted manuscripts, publishing letterpress broadsides, chapbooks, and two full-length collections each year. In their first year, the press is focusing on contemporary Latin American poetry… with future regions of focus including Scandinavia, China/Hong Kong and Taiwan!
Eulalia is looking forward to increasing their presence in the city — so be sure to follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram… and if you’re not a fan of social media, you can always sign up for their newsletter!
Pictured above: Michelle Gil-Montero and Román Antopolsky, co-editors of Eulalia Books.
What made you decide to publish only books in translation?
Well, we’re translators ourselves, with scrambled multicultural backgrounds, and we’re loud proponents of reading beyond our own navels. Translation brings us into contact with new poets, poems, forms, traditions, and places. Even beyond that: we see translation as an art in itself.
We find that people don’t often realize the important curatorial work that translators of poetry do. We want to publish the work of risk-taking translators who illuminate our literary and cultural blind spots—the translators who are out on the ground reading adventurously, digging into faraway literary scenes. Not just skimming poetry off the mainstream “best of” lists, which — despite tending to be elitist — can become really repetitive and homogenous.
There are still disproportionally few translations of poetry by women writers coming into English, and the same can be said of poetry that is very linguistically or aesthetically challenging, or from rural and economically disadvantaged regions and countries. We want to do our part to bring more translations of radical poetry into English, and meanwhile, we want to be conscious about addressing these persistent inequities.
When it comes to publishing books in translation, what’s different about Eulalia?
We publish poets who have, up until now, not had a collection published in English. I’m not aware of any other presses with that explicitly stated goal. But we place ourselves, happily, hopefully, alongside many wonderful presses that have inspired us: Action Books, Co-im-press, Ugly Duckling, Cardboard House, Kenning Editions, and many other fellow laborers of love who consistently bring out exciting, game-changing translations.
Will Eulalia focus on any particular languages in translation?
Right now we’re focusing on regions of interest, rather than languages per se. Our plan is to jump from place to place, mostly toward the top and bottom of the world map. We’re beginning with two Latin American books, both in Spanish, but we hope to publish work from some indigenous languages of Latin America. After that, we’ll look north to Scandinavia.
Why would you say publishing translation is important, particularly to Pittsburgh?
Pittsburgh feels like a welcoming new home for the press. It’s inspiring to be in the company of so many other organizations and initiatives with related goals, like City of Asylum and Cave Canem, not to mention a bunch of small presses, bookstores, and writing groups. We’re hoping to collaborate a lot. For now, our chapbook series is going to be printed by Haylee Ebersole, a local letterpress artist.
Will we see you around town?
You can start looking for our books at local sellers in the spring and summer. We’ll launch the books at local venues with readings by translators—TBA. But we’re brainstorming other ways to be present in the community. As experienced educators, we are hoping to plan some free translation workshops and, down the road, a poetry-in-translation book club. If anyone has ideas about how we might collaborate with your group/organization, definitely reach out! You can find us at http://eulaliabooks.com. Join our mailing list, email us, we’d love to hear from you!
Be sure to follow Eulalia Books online at Facebook, Twitter and Instagram! You can also sign up to receive their newsletter here.
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