Quality Books in Spanish from New Hampshire?!
In 1979 Ediciones del Norte was a dream shared by three
restless academics in Hanover, New Hampshire. It grew
to a reality through a peculiar combination of political
and economic circumstances which left many fine young writers
from the Southern Cone with no opportunity for publication
or recognition.
End of the Boom
Simultaneous with the intensification of repression in the
dictatorships of the Southern Cone, Barcelona - the major
source of publication opportunities - dried up for Latin
Americans due to the explosion of modern Spanish culture
after the death of Franco.
The Spanish publishers who had been most successful in Latin
America "went local" and set up autonomous national operations
(such as that of Plaza y Janés in Colombia), thus gaining in
depth, but losing in projection. Mexico, the traditional haven
for exiles, was forever gracious, yet could not pick up all the
shipwrecks. During the height of the influx from the Southern
Cone societies, one could feel the tensions in Mexico City, and
the doors began quietly shutting.
We could see that the center had evaporated for Latin American
publishing and the Latin American writer. Anywhere could be the
center of this no-center. The fact that Carlos Fuentes was our
neighbor for six months in Hanover, and Edmund Desnoes, Julio
Cortázar and others were regulars no longer seemed entirely
incredible (although we could never take it for granted)
And Back in New Hampshire...The Phoenix Arises
From the first to the last, every publishing event Norte has had
the good fortune to embark upon has its own countervailing story
of shipwreck and misfortune. For example, Isaac Goldemberg, the
brilliant young Peruvian Jewish writer, had sold the rights to his
first book, La vida a plazos de Don Jacobo Lerner,to a
fledgling publisher in 1977. The company, besieged with economic
problems, folded while the book - scheduled for a 10,000 copy run-
was still at press. A few books circulated among critics abroad,
and the novel made a deep impact in the international network of
Latin American critics, achieving an unheard of five-page review
in Vuelta. Shortly thereafter, the New Yorker called
the book "extraordinary" and every publisher from the New York Times
and Newsweek to the smallest dailies praised it wholeheatedly.
Through the grapevine, Norte managed to acquire the rights for what
was to be, in reality, the first Spanish edition - two years after the
successful translation! And this story is hardly atypical.
Siempre que se me pregunta porqué lancé a publicar autores
latinoamericanos en Estados Unidos, aún ahora, después de
15 años en el oficio, siento la sorpresa de quien llega
de un salto mortal a la orilla. La existencia de Ediciones
de Norte es una realidad innegable como lo prueban los
muchos miles de lectores hispanos y norteamericanos que
al leer nuestras ediciones fortalecen los vínculos entre
Norte y Sur. Siento que en algún lugar hay un muchacho
de Iowa, quien sin tener idea de América Latina, hace
la conexión mental a través de la lectura de nuestros
libros.
Al principio hubo quien me dijo que mi idea de buscar lo
mejor, especialmente en el género novela, publicarlo en
ediciones lindas y cuidadas, y hacer que llegara a todo
el mundo, era delirante. Pero en realidad lanzar desde
Nueva Inglaterra un proyecto editorial latinoamericano
para un mundo que no tenía ningún centro, en donde el
uruguayo vivía en Caracas, el chileno en Guadalajara, el
argentino en Manhattan, etc., no era tan absurdo.
Barcelona ya no era el centro editorial para los escritores
latinoamericanos tal como lo había sido durante el famoso
"boom" y México no podía con tantos exiliados. Además ¿donde
iba a publicar en español un cubano refugiado?
Frank Janney, Director
EDICIONES DEL NORTE HOMEPAGE