ROCHESTER, N.Y.—The Dalkey Archive Press, a prestigious independent publisher specializing in international literature and translations, will move to the University of Rochester in January 2007. A nonprofit publisher currently located in Normal, Ill., Dalkey (www.dalkeyarchive.com) releases 30 titles a year that are carried in 2,000 bookstores and libraries in the United States and Canada.
"We are delighted that Dalkey Archive Press, the premier press in literary translation, has chosen to join us at the University of Rochester," said Peter Lennie, the Robert L. and Mary L. Sproull Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering. "Its presence on campus will help energize exciting new programs and will offer rich opportunities—particularly those focused on literary translation—to connect scholarship and professional experience."
"The University of Rochester, one of the leading research universities in the country, is making a major commitment to the humanities and is an ideal home for the Press," said John O'Brien, founder and director of Dalkey Archive Press. "We're also looking forward to becoming part of the very visible and active literary community in the Rochester area. Besides being close to major cultural centers in New York City, Boston, and Toronto, Rochester also has a strong tradition of support of the arts, as evidenced by the fact that both BOA Editions press and Writers & Books literary center are located there."
With Dalkey as a resource, the University of Rochester will be able to offer students unique access to publishers, editors, and other professionals in literary fields. Students will have opportunities for varied professional experience, especially focused on translation, including surveying and reporting on potential books for translation, working with foreign publishers and agents, and doing a book-length translation. Besides opportunities in translation, a variety of internships with the Press also will be available to interested undergraduate and graduate students.
Dalkey Archive Press was founded in 1984 and publishes books of poetry, criticism, and biography as well as fiction. Its catalogue features more than 350 works by authors from across the globe, including the United States, Canada, France, Britain, Russia, Spain, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, and Belgium. Its English translation of Voices from Chernobyl, a firsthand account by survivors of the Soviet nuclear reactor disaster published in 2005, received the National Book Critics Circle Award in the general nonfiction category.
"Dalkey chooses innovative books that represent what is happening around the world and are a vital part of our culture, and that we believe will be read and relevant a hundred years from now," said O'Brien. "There is extraordinary work being done in other countries, and providing American readers access to this literature will help promote understanding and appreciation of different cultures."
Recent translations published by Dalkey include Jean-Philippe Toussaint's Television, Dubravka Ugresic's Lend Me Your Character, and a critically acclaimed new translation of Gustave Flaubert's Bouvard and Pecuchet. Scheduled for release this fall are Red the Fiend, by the late award-winning American author Gilbert Sorrentino; Summer in Termuren by Flemish writer—and former Nobel Prize candidate—Louis Paul Boon; and several works of literary criticism as well as translations of novels from Spanish and French.
"Dalkey Archive is a haven for the best of modern and contemporary world literature, a small press with a huge impact, and its presence here will help draw international attention to Rochester's thriving literary culture," said novelist Joanna Scott, a MacArthur Fellow and Roswell S. Burrows Professor of English at the University of Rochester. "It's an exciting time for the arts in this community."
Dalkey Archive Press also publishes the journal the Review of Contemporary Fiction and CONTEXT, a magazine of literary review and criticism that is distributed free to bookstores, universities, and libraries and is available online.
"The University is strongly committed to the humanities," said Lennie, noting the recent launch of a $100,000 Humanities Fund to support work by Rochester faculty. In addition, the University of Rochester is a partner with Syracuse and Cornell universities in creating a "Central New York Humanities Corridor," an initiative to connect humanities teaching and research among the three institutions. The University is also home to the University of Rochester Press. Operated by British-based publisher Boydell & Brewer on behalf of the University, the press publishes scholarly titles in a variety of fields, including musical theory and history, African studies, history of medicine, history of ideas, and religion and ethics. "The humanities are central to the academic and cultural life of the University," Lennie said.
Founded in 1850, the University of Rochester has 8,500 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in programs in the humanities, science and engineering, business, music, education, and medicine. Its medical, research, and cultural components include the Medical Center, Memorial Art Gallery, Eastman Theatre, and the Center for Optics Manufacturing. With 17,000 faculty and staff members, the University of Rochester is the area's leading employer.