#88: “Making Books Is a Countercultural Act”

Restless Books devotes itself to publishing books you don’t usually find in English—from Cuban science fiction and illustrated retellings of the Ramayana to doorstopper Hungarian novels. Its catalog features classics, like Don Quixote and The Souls of Black Folk, new immigrant writing from Abu Dhabi, and the mind-boggling prose of Chilean-French novelist Alejandro Jodorowsky. Only three percent of books published in English are in translation, most from European languages. So what does it take to transform a book from one language to another? To answer that question, Ilan Stavans and Joshua Ellison, co-founders of Restless Books, give us a crash course in Publishing 101.

Go beyond the episode:

• Peruse the growing list of titles in the Restless Books catalogue
• Read an excerpt from Andrés Neuman’s How to Travel Without Seeing, his memoir of a whirlwind trip to every country in Latin America, and from Githa Hariharan’s Almost Home, a collection of essays about finding a place in the world when you’re not exactly from a single place
• Listen to our interview with Naivo, author of Beyond the Rice Fields (the first Malagasy novel ever translated into English) and his translator, Allison Charette
• Check out the University of Rochester’s Three Percent project, which frequently reviews new books in translation
• Read new stories in translation (including bilingual versions!) on Words Without Borders, the online magazine for international literature
• Cross a prizewinner off your reading list by exploring the Man Booker International Prize

Tune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek. Follow us on Twitter @TheAmScho or on Facebook.

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