Archipelago Books
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| Archipelago Books | |
|---|---|
| Name | Archipelago Books |
| Founded | 2003 |
| Founder | Kevin M. Schultz |
| Country | United States |
| Headquarters | Brooklyn, New York |
| Publications | Books, Translations |
| Topics | World literature, Poetry, Fiction, Essays |
Archipelago Books Archipelago Books is an independent nonprofit publisher specializing in literary translation, poetry, and international fiction. Founded in 2003 in Brooklyn, New York, the press focuses on bringing works by authors from diverse regions into English, collaborating with translators, literary journals, cultural institutions, and universities. Its catalog reflects engagement with contemporary and historical voices from across Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.
History
Archipelago Books was established in 2003 by Kevin M. Schultz amid a landscape of independent presses including Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New Directions Publishing Corporation, Penguin Books, Vintage Books, and Graywolf Press. Early projects connected the press with translators active in networks around Harvard University, Columbia University, New York University, Yale University, and Princeton University. Archipelago collaborated with cultural organizations such as the British Council, Goethe-Institut, Institut Français, Japan Foundation, and Istituto Italiano di Cultura to source texts and support translation commissioning. The press’s emergence paralleled initiatives at PEN America, Modern Language Association, and the National Endowment for the Arts promoting translation programs. Partnerships with independent bookstores like Powell's Books, Strand Bookstore, Books Are Magic, and distributors similar to Consortium Book Sales & Distribution shaped its market presence. Over time Archipelago’s editorial decisions intersected with literary festivals such as the Brooklyn Book Festival, Edinburgh International Book Festival, Hay Festival, and Prague Writers' Festival.
Mission and Editorial Focus
Archipelago’s mission emphasizes cultural exchange by publishing translations from languages including Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Greek, Turkish, Hebrew, Portuguese, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Slovak, Croatian, Serbian, Ukrainian, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Armenian, Georgian, Azerbaijani, Hindi, Bengali, Urdu, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian, Malay, Swahili, Zulu, Afrikaans, Amharic, Somali, Quechua, Guarani, Nahuatl, and Yiddish. Editorial focus aligns with translators and institutions such as Marian Schwartz, Lydia Davis, Lyn Hejinian, Ros Schwartz, and programs at The New School. The press champions poetry, short fiction, novellas, and essay collections from authors connected to movements like Surrealism, Modernism, Postmodernism, Magical Realism, and regional literatures tied to Latin American Boom figures, although Archipelago often highlights lesser-known contemporaries. Collaborations have drawn on resources at Library of Congress, New York Public Library, and university presses including Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press for scholarly exchange.
Notable Translations and Authors
Archipelago has published translations of writers associated with literary communities influencing and intersecting with names such as Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel García Márquez, Octavio Paz, Pablo Neruda, Federico García Lorca, Anna Akhmatova, Joseph Brodsky, Rainer Maria Rilke, Hölderlin, Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, Marcel Proust, Simone de Beauvoir, Italo Calvino, Clarice Lispector, Herta Müller, Imre Kertész, Wisława Szymborska, Czesław Miłosz, Raduan Nassar, Naguib Mahfouz, Orhan Pamuk, Elif Shafak, Nadine Gordimer, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Kenzaburō Ōe, Haruki Murakami, Yasunari Kawabata, Li-Young Lee, Bei Dao, Mahmoud Darwish, Adonis (poet), Nizar Qabbani, Goethe, Schiller, Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Bulgakov, Anna Seghers, Derek Walcott, Seamus Heaney, John Ashbery, T.S. Eliot, Sylvia Plath, Elizabeth Bishop, Wallace Stevens, Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Ismail Kadare, Vladimir Nabokov, Isabel Allende, Mario Vargas Llosa, J.M. Coetzee, A.S. Byatt, Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Katherine Mansfield, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Philip Roth, and Toni Morrison—contextualizing Archipelago’s place in a global literary ecosystem. Specific contemporary authors in Archipelago’s lists include poets and novelists from Chile, Argentina, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, India, Pakistan, China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya.
Publication Series and Imprints
Archipelago organizes titles into thematic and regional collections comparable to series at presses like Penguin Classics, Everyman's Library, and Modern Library. The press issues poetry chapbooks along lines similar to those produced by Copper Canyon Press and short fiction collections akin to offerings from Dalkey Archive Press. Archipelago’s editorial projects often appear alongside collaborations with academic series at Princeton University Press, Harvard University Press, and Yale University Press for critical editions and bilingual texts. Joint imprint-style projects have involved cultural programs such as Alliance Française, Society of Authors (UK), and translation prizes connected to PEN Translation Prize initiatives.
Awards and Recognition
Titles from Archipelago have been finalists for and recipients of honors in the vein of National Book Award, Pulitzer Prize, Nobel Prize in Literature associations by translated authors, NPR Best Books lists, The New York Times Book Review best-of lists, and awards from bodies like PEN America, International Dublin Literary Award, Strega Prize (context for translated works), Prix Goncourt (French originals), BolognaRagazzi (children’s translations context), and regional prizes such as Casa de las Américas Prize and Nehru Prize. Translators associated with the press have been recognized by organizations including American Academy of Arts and Letters, National Endowment for the Humanities, and translation fellowships from DAAD and Fulbright Program.
Distribution and Partnerships
Archipelago distributes through independent book distributors and collaborates with academic libraries like New York Public Library, Boston Public Library, Library of Congress, and university libraries at Columbia University and University of California, Berkeley. Retail partnerships include independent bookstores, online retailers similar to Amazon (retailer), and international book fairs such as Frankfurt Book Fair, London Book Fair, Bologna Children's Book Fair, BookExpo America, and Bienal do Livro. The press engages with translation networks and funding bodies such as National Endowment for the Arts, Creative Europe, Canada Council for the Arts, and private foundations including Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for project support and rights negotiations with agents active in markets like France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Argentina, Japan, and South Korea.