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The Value of Publishing Translation
John O’Brien
In 2001, Dalkey Archive was
excelling at re-issuing out-of-print
literature that had previously
appeared from another
publishing house for many
years, but was not, I thought,
excelling in finding new writers.
I had wanted to find writers
who had never been published
in English, either young or old,
whose quality was unquestioned
but had not done well in the
marketplace—writers whose sole
merit was their artistic excellence.
But how to find out about these writers Up until that
time, only France had sponsored an editorial trip for Dalkey
and helped to arrange meetings with publishers and critics.
Would, however, other countries help in the same way Largely
as a test case, we contacted the Finnish office responsible for
promoting its literature abroad, the Finnish Literature Exchange.
Iris Schwank, the head of this
government agency, was quite
welcoming to the idea and
sponsored a trip to Helsinki in
March 2004 for myself and an
assistant editor to meet with
the major publishing houses
and a few critics, an editor of
a literary magazine, a handful
of authors, and the manager
of the largest bookstore in
Helsinki.
I think the publishers had
a very hard time believing
“The National
Endowment for the
Arts was the only
funding agency that
would help with the
costs of publishing
literature—foreign
or domestic.”
that an American publisher had shown up at all, never mind
that he was looking for the best of their literature rather than
what would sell well. The trip to the bookstore led me to a small
display of translated Finnish literature, and there were a few
gems sitting there. This trip led to Dalkey eventually publishing
three Finnish books.
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National Endowment for the Arts