Dear all,
The message below was sent to me by Dedalus Publishers. If you have any
interest in literature in English translation, please consider writing to
the Arts Council in support of Dedalus.
Two of the many good things to be said about Dedalus are
1. that their translated works are nearly always well translated.
2. that a high proportion of what they do is outside the main stream. It is
work that might otherwise not get translated at all.
Please also think about forwarding this message to any other lists you
subscribe to!
All the best,
Robert Chandler
------ Forwarded Message
From: <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2010 15:07:04 EDT
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re Letter of Support for Dedalus Publishers
Dear Robert,
Re letter of support
We are in negotiations with Arts Council England (ACE) about reinstatement
as a Regular Funded Organisation. The Regional Council of ACE will take this
decision on 29 June 2009. ACE has said it will, as part of this process,
consider third party letters of support. As ACE has specifically asked for
these testimonials it is clear that they consider them highly relevant and
that they might make it easier for ACE to reinstate Dedalus.
We hope that you will consider providing Dedalus with such a letter .
Our mission, as we state on our website, is to be unique: an exciting,
innovative and distinctive alternative to commercial publishing; to find new
talent and put British publishing at the heart of Europe. To achieve this we
have translated books from 16 European languages and introduced authors such
as Sylvie Germain, Yuri Buida and Herbert Rosendorfer into English and made
a body of work available in English from neglected classic authors such as
J.- K.Huysmans, Giovanni Verga, Eca de Queiroz and Gustav Meyrink in fine
new translations.
The English authors we have discovered include Robert Irwin, Andrew Crumey
and David Madsen. Not only have we created an opportunity for new writers in
the UK, but have championed their work around the world, selling rights in
our books to publishers in twenty eight different territories and into
twenty three different languages. We average out five translation rights
for every new title we commission and a film option on every sixth book. As
we deal in uncommercial fiction the amounts concerned tend to be small. The
most we have earned for a rightsı sale is £25,000 but a few thousand pounds
is closer to the norm, whereas for Eastern Europe one is talking on the
whole of several hundred pounds only. Most publishers we have spoken to
about rights consider our record remarkable, especially so considering the
titles we have to sell.
Dedalus has won the following literary prizes: French, German, Russian,
Greek, Oxford Weidenfeld, Pen/Book-of-the-Month-Club translation prizes, the
Occult Book of the Year, The European Crime and Mystery Award, the Saltire
Prize for the Best First Novel, in addition Dedalus has been shortlisted
twice for both the Portuguese and German translation prizes, four times for
the Oxford Weidenfeld Translation Prize and nominated for The American
Library Association Notable Book Awards. Two Dedalus titles were longlisted
for The Booker Prize. Despite the recession Dedalus continues to find
exciting new authors and to publish their work.
The financial restraint which large publishers work under makes it
impossible for them to publish uncommercial literary fiction, or literary
non-fiction, so it is a role which can only be fulfilled by smaller
publishers who are able to take publishing decisions based on cultural and
not commercial reasons. To do this it is necessary to have the support of a
rich owner or some kind of financial support provided by cultural
organisations or altruistic sponsors. Dedalus at the moment has neither.
From 1990 to 2008 Dedalus received financial support from ACE, which went
from £5,000 in 1990 to £24,958 per annum in 2008. Dedalus has enjoyed two
years of sponsorship from Routledge Books, as part of its corporate
responsibility programme, getting £30,000 per annum. This sponsorship ended
in March 2010 so it is important that Dedalus secures regular funding from
ACE so that it can continue to publish books which extend what is available
to English readers.
Dedalus has a staff of 1.5 people, who earn between them under £24,200 per
annum, its directors are unpaid, despite in some cases doing considerable
amounts of work, it has never paid its shareholders a dividend and has
minimal office expenses. Any money generated by Dedalus is reinvested in its
list.
As an innovative and high risk publisher, which makes a contribution to the
cultural life of this country, we hope that Dedalus is worthy of your
support.
Yours Sincerely,
Eric Lane
------ End of Forwarded Message
