"The Russian Library"

There's an interesting article here about a very ambitious project being undertaken by Overlook Press: "The Russian Library, a colossal 125 volume series of translated fiction, poetry and drama to be published over the next ten years."

The publisher Peter Mayer says, "Many of these books are unknown, but they deserve translation."

That's exciting in and of itself.

The whole article can be read here:
http://publishingperspectives.com/2013/01/canonizing-russian-literature-for-the-...

Wow! Sounds amazing!

This good news leaves me a little confused. Overlook already operates an imprint called Ardis that publishes Russian literature -- close to 100 titles so far, I think. I wonder if this new project will be separate from Ardis, or if the new books will be issued under the Ardis name. Regardless, it'll be great to get some new books done into English and I won't really care how they go about doing it.

It does sound interesting!

I wrote about it here:
https://languagehat.com/columbias-russian-library/

And reported on a recent translation here:
https://languagehat.com/the-bookshelf-countries-that-dont-exist/

Here's the publisher's page, with a list of titles:
https://cup.columbia.edu/russian-library

They say:

The Columbia University Press Russian Library is no longer supported by funds that originate with the Russian government or the Institute of Translation in Moscow. Columbia University Press and the editorial advisory board of the Russian Library are committed to continuing the program of making a broad range of Russian literature available in English and to supporting and recognizing talented translators.

*bump*

I believe there have been delays in issuing books in the Russian Library imprint because of the withdrawal of funds. However, CUP do seem to be starting up again and have two new works out from Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky and Fyodor Sologub - so most definitely worth keeping an eye on them!