By luck of the Irish, Madrid-based publisher Hispabooks got a sizeable mention in a May 29th story by Eileen Battersby in the Irish Times. Battersby highlighted the rich literary history of Spain (starting with Don Quixote de la Mancha by the legendary Miguel de Cervantes), and then profiled nine contemporary titles from Spain Spanish publishers.
Four of these titles are the literary love children (niños del amor) of Ana Pérez Galván and Gregorio Doval, Hispabooks founding editors. The titles highlighted—The Stein Report by Jose Carlos Llop, The Birthday Buyer by Adolfo Garcia Ortega, Uppsala Woods by Alvaro Colomer, and The Faint-Hearted Bolshevik by Lorenzo Silva—are exciting representations of what Hispabooks is all about: English translations of the best contemporary Spanish writing from writers working in one of Spain’s four languages.
And although English-language publishers remain “slow to take chances on literary fiction in translation . . . Hispabooks is proving that this no longer matters. Why wait on London or New York? Madrid is identifying quality literary fiction and making it available to a wider readership.” In the words of Battersby, “Readers are far more adventurous–publishers should stop underestimating us.”