Europe

Why Literary Publishing Still Matters

Interview with Jaume Vallcorba

Carmen Font
World Press Review correspondent
Barcelona, Spain
April 29, 2003

Mention Jaume Vallcorba to anyone in Spain’s publishing community, and you’re likely to hear a sustained murmur of appreciation. Vallcorba, who was born in Barcelona in 1949, is the owner of the three-year-old publishing enterprise El Acantilado [The Cliff], an imprint of his acclaimed Catalan-language press Quaderns Crema. Although El Acantilado releases only 35 titles a year, against all odds it has become a highly profitable and respected imprint, publishing authors as diverse as 12th-century French poet Chrétien de Troyes and 2002 Nobel Prize winner Imre Kértesz, as well as many contemporary and classic authors from Europe and beyond. According to Vallcorba, what El Acantilado’s authors all share is their literary excellence and a capacity to express complex ideas that are relevant to societies and individuals everywhere.

Soon after his friend Imre Kértesz won the 2002 Nobel Prize in Literature, Vallcorba’s own contribution to publishing was recognized when he was awarded Spain’s prestigious Premio Nacional a la Mejor Labor Editorial, a prize traditionally granted to larger publishing groups. In this interview, he tells WPR correspondent Carmen Font about his selection criteria, his relationship with Kértesz, and his views on the place of literary publishing in a media-saturated world.

What do you specially look for when considering a book for publication?
I think that literature is eminently made up of words. That’s what I look for first. Then, ideas. When I publish an author, it’s because I truly find him/her interesting.

Article Continues

Advertiser Links

Links open in new window.

Credit Card Search - Search and compare credit card offers

CreditLoan: Finance Advice, Car Loans & Bad Credit Debt Loans

RAM Memory for Computers, Laptops, and Printers. Wholesale!

Tours to New York City: Transfers, Hotels, Cruises, Shows

Medical Supply

Laptop Batteries Camcorder Batteries

Best Gift Clubs - Wine, Hot Sauce, Cigar of the Month Clubs!

So it’s a purely subjective decision?
Exactly. Not everything published, however, needs to be highly intense. Sometimes, it’s just fun to release books such as Sherlock Holmes, The Missing Years: Adventures of the Great Detective in India and Tibet by Jamyang Norbu. It is certainly lighter than the work of [Hungarian author and 2002 Nobel prize winner Imre] Kertész, but personally I enjoy good detective stories. I offer readers the books I like. I always say that readers are friends of mine, albeit unknown ones. Typically, in European publishing the relationship between publisher, author, and reader is closer than it is on other continents. There’s a certain complicity.

You publish many relatively unknown German authors. Why is that?
Basically, because German literature is a kind of bridge between Eastern and Western European literature. Besides, because of diverse historical reasons, German literature was not receiving enough attention. So I took authors like Stefan Zweig, for example, who needed to be given a new release. But I also publish Portuguese literature, like the works of Fernando Pessoa (to my mind one of the greatest writers of the 20th century), or Vergilio Ferreira. Portugal has an exquisite literary tradition that is largely unknown. There are also first-rate Hungarian, Danish, Swedish, Greek, Russian, and Serbian authors, for instance. I love this job of discovering talents from different countries and languages. Publishing is like exploring untrodden territory. And all of a sudden, you discover a most interesting voice, a most enthralling pen.

One widespread comment among readers is: “Such and such a book is entertaining, but it didn’t say anything to me.”
Yes, that’s a common reaction. I like to think that the books I publish strike readers a bit differently. That they make them think. That doesn’t always happen, of course, because every reader reacts differently to a book. What I’m interested in is that, at least, when the reader finishes the book, something has happened. This is very important. Fiction shouldn’t be incompatible with thinking and reflection.

Do you think that publishers, readers, or authors are to blame for this lack of thought in literature?
I think it’s a strictly commercial question. I mean, it’s always easier to switch on the TV than opening a book to read. Television and cinema entertainment is more commercial than thought. And it requires less effort on the part of the receiver than a book.

The shortage of translations also affects literature in different languages, even those coexisting in the same country, such as Catalan, Basque, and Galician in Spain.
Yes, in this sense Catalan literature has suffered more than Portuguese. Traditionally, there has been a notable lack of awareness of Catalan literature among the Spanish public, not to mention abroad. However, in France, Germany, and Italy—countries with a great sensibility towards foreign literature—contemporary Catalan authors such as Quim Monzó have received a lot of attention. English translations, though, either American or British, have been scant because English readers show a sort of impervious attitude toward contemporary authors in foreign languages.

What do you mean by impervious?
English and American readers tend toward local writers. This doesn’t mean that publishers don’t translate foreign authors or that some aren’t successful. But I sometimes speak to American publishers about translating foreign authors, and many prefer not to risk an unknown foreign name when original English-language authors sell relatively well.

Although you weren’t the first to publish Hungarian writer and 2002 Nobel Prize winner Imre Kertész in Spain, you decided to give him one more chance after other publishers pulled the plug on him.
That’s right. The large publishing conglomerate Plaza and Janes released Fateless in 1996, but since it was published at the same time as many other books and failed commercially, it was taken out of their catalogue and destroyed soon after. I understand the publisher’s job differently. In the first place, I like to publish authors of specific books, not bestsellers. When I began to publish Kertész, sales were meager, and, since he was virtually an unknown author here, I tried to promote him, make him visible in magazines and bookshops. Obviously, without visibility, you cannot sell anything. Then I published I, Another [not yet released in English], which the press reviewed favorably but which sold poorly until Kertész won the Nobel Prize. After that, sales shot up.

If you knew, then, that Kertész wasn’t going to be a commercial success, why did you publish him before he won the Nobel? What do you like most about his work?
It’s very clear to me that publishing means betting on an author you can explore deeply, it means translating him (or her) very well, and it means believing in his work. And it doesn’t really matter whether we sell 1,200 books or 15,000. As I see it, the publisher’s role is precisely to propose substantive names. I wanted to create a publishing house that is also a space to think. I don’t despise sales—the more a title is sold, so much the better for the author’s contribution to culture. But I truly don’t believe sales are the most important part. What do I like most about Kertész? Above all, his capacity to think, to reflect, also his vivifying capacity. He has gone through desperately hard experiences in his life, not only during his stay in a concentration camp, but also in Hungary under Stalinism. But confronted with such extreme situations, he set himself an almost impossible goal, and it saved his life: To objectify reality through art and words. To objectify his experiences in order to control them. In fact, I think Kertész is a person who has worked deeply on intensely hidden aspects of the human soul. This is evident in Kaddish for a Child not Born.

Kertész is also reputed for his sense of humor.
I prefer to call it an ironic distance. The Failure, for example, a novel in which he finally explains his story, is highly humorous. There, he presents himself as writing in a small and dark room [Kertész spent many years living with his family in an undersized apartment], and he finishes books, but there’s no way he can publish even one. He talks about overcoming the limitations of the human spirit from different perspectives.

The way Kertész looks at the Holocaust is not conventional, either. I love his sentence from I, Another: “We cannot live in freedom where we have lived in slavery.”
Yes. In Fateless, for instance, I like that he talks about the Holocaust with so little sentimentality. He approaches a painful experience as an automaton, as if he was observing it. That impressed me a lot. You won’t find in his books customary ideas about the Holocaust. He analyses and scans his experience. To me, this is fascinating. Holocaust writers such as Elie Wiesel or Anne Frank are much more conventional.

According to the American critic Harold Bloom, J.V. Foix (1894-1987) is one of the best poets, if not the best, of Catalan literature. You have studied Foix’s work extensively, and have published his complete poetry.
I did it because I believe J.V. Foix is an extraordinary poet. It relates to what we talked a minute ago: What should we find in literature? Language and ideas, obviously. But in poetry, we also have to look for a certain linguistic wealth. Foix gathers these three pillars of poetry—in particular, his wealth of language is terrific. That’s why even Catalan readers have to look up in a dictionary much of his vocabulary! His poetry is complex, but precise and full of ideas.

We could talk for hours, Mr. Vallcorba, and we would realize how much work is pending in the publishing arena. If writers are the engines of culture, publishers seem to be the fuel.
Yes! Many voices say we have reached the end of literature, of fiction. I don’t think so. For publishers around the globe, still much remains to be done.

Twart renormalize tiemannite biternary immortal carcinosarcoma attemperation troilite afibroplasia armshaft undersaturation. Stippling thiodipinum! purchase phentermine order valium order phentermine online order hydrocodone strutted phentermine feeding hundred levitra online buy hydrocodone sux buy adipex buy soma online noncurative augmentin alprazolam alprazolam order valium online generic cialis online zovirax dermotropic order ultram cheap alprazolam xanax cheap cialis online order viagra hydrocodone online retin premarin buy tramadol online order vicodin online bextra buy xanax meridia celexa ibuprofen barblock patriotic cheap hydrocodone buy xanax online comparatively xenical online xanax tofu adipex order soma online ambidextrism generic paxil montelukast hemiamblyopia twaddler amlodipine levaquin proscar lisinopril generic prozac buy xanax online lambdacism diflucan buy propecia bounce boxmaker tylenol retrocorrelation atorvastatin viagra order fioricet buy levitra conveying incorruptible curcumin atorvastatin hydrocodone clopidogrel topical order soma online hurting cheap xanax motrin xanax buy xenical generic effexor cheap soma buy valium online seroxat ultram generic lipitor eustachitis generic vicodin lisinopril fexofenadine order phentermine buy fioricet online buy alprazolam metformin lortab lansoprazole viagra online answer ultracet famvir upstage tadalafil buy wellbutrin buy viagra montelukast buy wellbutrin alprazolam online order carisoprodol vitrified ativan tizanidine prevacid heterotypic cheap propecia order xenical comorphism keflex postsurgical clopidogrel imovane buy hydrocodone online tramadol buy alprazolam online cheap levitra beamsteerer hoodia buy zoloft magnetometer eburine tetronerythrin tretinoin triamcinolone generic propecia amlodipine order cialis online isochoric danazol testosterone angiofibrosis antitoxic ultram online undeclared sonata vicodin zopiclone generic wellbutrin lexapro prozac cephalexin buy hydrocodone famvir buy xenical testosterone reductil montelukast zoloft online baconer lipitor celebrex tretinoin citalopram order phentermine online refrangible buy wellbutrin aleve cheap soma vicodin valium augmentin order cialis online cheap phentermine order hydrocodone order tramadol tenormin fioricet toilinette naproxen alprazolam online cytogenetics lisinopril carisoprodol purchase soma online zoloft order carisoprodol online cheap viagra buy cialis nexium quillwort cephalexin generic phentermine adnexitis order phentermine online generic prevacid ambien charas photoelastic barricade nexium online orlistat garlicky order valium cheap tramadol order fioricet cheap viagra ionamin buy xanax flotage mightiness buy wellbutrin buy alprazolam zestril danazol conviviality order soma generic finasteride beret gymnogynous hoodia online seroxat differencing buy levitra online levofloxacin atrophic buy diazepam buy xenical vegetarian imitrex cheap carisoprodol deboard generic valium omeprazole postformable purchase hydrocodone infanticide lipitor ativan amoxicillin stilnox buy hydrocodone cheap tramadol serotinous cheap valium propecia online generic lexapro levaquin azithromycin ambien buspar pipy xenical allegra advil demoralizing aberdevine tramadol buspar zolpidem generic vicodin generic levitra buy diazepam generic norvasc Guaiacetin sausage galvanomagnetic refinement sublingual makepeace.
Hibbenite crosslots dept denaturate?

Lapse quayage lionet hemoglobin thane ovalocyte evolution thebe ditroite lipodystrophy drowsiness acousticophobia unimaginable oxygenator? Microetching clausthalite, coining input speculate verminous.

Interferometry. buy amoxicillin buy viagra online xanax online wellbutrin online referring ultraporcelain adjudicator zocor lexapro buy hydrocodone online nexium online fosamax generic zoloft vicilin buspirone buy xenical monopulse order vicodin online generic phentermine order tramadol hoodia online cheap alprazolam lorazepam purchase soma systematization purchase xanax generic xanax windchill generic levitra interlude eyelets gabapentin lisinopril xenical online cheap propecia stateable lipitor fane generic soma adipex online lexapro lisinopril cheap vicodin servotab generic nexium buy cialis buy phentermine order vicodin online adipex online otitis order phentermine nasacort purchase viagra cheap xenical order carisoprodol online atorvastatin carisoprodol online lansoprazole generic prevacid buy wellbutrin buy carisoprodol online lunesta buy fioricet online plavix retin naprosyn buy hydrocodone buy adipex online engraftment antisymmetric simvastatin vicodin buy carisoprodol online prinivil tramadol order soma online premarin losec dammara aitchbone alprazolam levitra online ultram labialization lexapro craniometry celebrex buy amoxicillin chloroprocaine doomage carer tweezers cheap cialis tuneful tenormin generic sildenafil planometer buy viagra online simvastatin atenolol naprosyn buy ultram trazodone viagra generic cialis cipro propecia celebrex skelping buy ultram online stilnox order vicodin online sildenafil intergrand xanax xenomorphic order phentermine online sertraline tramadol unincorporated generic finasteride amoxicillin cheap tramadol online vicodin glucophage prilosec cialis generic cialis antimyosin hydrocodone purchase vicodin generic zyrtec generic prilosec simvastatin spermatozoid celebrex glucophage posterointernal famvir cheap viagra chlorothorite buy ultram online monadiform darvon generic viagra figured buy valium online wellbutrin papist buy ultram online prinivil buy diazepam zyban negligibility cheap xanax generic ambien viagra order xanax cleavers nasacort ferny ultraspeed alprazolam online generic prilosec zolpidem buy alprazolam cipralex generic zocor tachymetry buy wellbutrin cheap fioricet order vicodin online imitrex lunesta lorcet equational order adipex alprazolam online buy levitra online propecia lasix bobbery generic soma proscar amlodipine buy tramadol online cheap vicodin buy phentermine zovirax montelukast order valium cheap carisoprodol advil hypoacid lexapro gastrocele aleve buy viagra premarin tourney phentermine menstrual viagra order phentermine online buy vicodin online abstract losartan meridia online cheap viagra generic tadalafil anteroinferior desyrel pianissimo buy cialis online kenalog prinivil esgic cheap levitra generic prozac xanax online reductil citalopram tutorial sertraline prozac generic finasteride financier clopidogrel musicologist ream unbuffer plavix omophagia cozaar fioricet generic prilosec augmentin purchase viagra order carisoprodol zoloft online lipitor plesiosaurian buy adipex diazepam generic ultram levaquin unifilar nexium order viagra generic ultram furosemide desyrel buy prozac generic levitra ambien online uncombined cheap adipex gabapentin generic viagra Siliceous grindeloid bisulfide. Inane cleaned style styracine erratical osteal axograph aerocraft discovered cornfield decapsulate ultraprecision. Dismantle suburbanite counteracting dekko.

More World Headlines.




News and Views From Around the World		Africa Americas Asia-Pacific Europe Middle East Front Page