Back in January, a short piece I posted here mentioned the plight of Dedalus Books, a rather fine literary publishing house in London threatened with closure as a result of losing Arts Council funding.
Well, now there’s some good news. A dashing knight in white armour has been found: Another, considerably larger, and no less fine, publishing house, Routledge has stepped in (by all accounts in an admirably non-interventionist sort of way) to help out, at least for a couple of years.
This press release from Dedalus explains:
PRESS RELEASE
Dedalus is proud to announce that Informa plc through its subsidiary company Routledge Books, an imprint of Taylor & Francis, will sponsor Dedalus for the next two years as part of Informa plc’s corporate responsibility programme.
This sponsorship means that Dedalus will be able to honour the commitments it has undertaken to its authors, translators, cultural institutions and other publishers. We will continue to encourage and support new writing, with special emphasis on the dialogue between cultures brought about by literature in translation
Dedalus’s readers can now look forward to translated fiction from Danish, Estonian, Flemish, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish in the next two years as well as more original English language fiction. Dedalus has just bought Made in Yaroslavl, a brilliant first novel by Jeremy Weingard, who lives in the East of England.
“Apart from financial support we hope to benefit from the technical expertise and advice of a large and successful publisher which should be of great benefit to Dedalus. We look forward to working with Routledge Books and making the most of the opportunities this sponsorship programme will provide for Dedalus.”
Eric Lane, M.D of Dedalus Publishers
This is excellent news. Excellent, first, that Dedalus will still be around to bring their innovative and eclectic range of books to anyone who is interested. Excellent too, that a larger and more established media and publishing company like Informa/Routledge is really showing the meaning of “Corporate Responsibility” by giving support to (but, it would appear, making no demands of) another publisher in need of help.
So, congratulations and hearty cheers for all who have led to this turn of affairs!
It’s true that (apart from, quite frankly, being almost unreadable, unfortunately), The Red Laugh isn’t really much of a laugh – so I know what:
Triple absinthes all round
