co•im•press — Translations
Overview
co•im•press has established itself as a vital conduit for international literature that resists easy categorization. The press's recent catalog—featuring Kim Hyesoon, Aase Berg, Marosa di Giorgio, Tytti Heikennen, Hiromi Itō, Xavier Villarrutia, Raul Zurita, and Alejandra Pizarnik—signals a curatorial commitment to writing that operates at the edges of genre, decorum, and commercial viability. This open call invites translators to submit book-length works of 48 manuscript pages or longer, in any literary genre, from any language. There is no submission fee. The press does not merely seek competent translations; it seeks translations that argue for their own necessity. The required cover letter asks for a translator biography, an author biography, a statement on the value and timeliness of the translation, and a rationale for how the book aligns with co•im•press's aesthetic and publishing mission. This structure places the translator's critical and curatorial voice at the center of the application. The press is explicit about its taste: it favors works that are strange, transgressive, visceral-mystical, or "unpublishable" through traditional means. That language is not incidental—it is a precise curatorial filter. What co•im•press offers is publication within a dedicated literary program that has consistently championed poets and writers overlooked by mainstream Anglophone presses. The press's list demonstrates a sustained engagement with surrealism, feminist poetics, Latin American and Nordic experimental traditions, and translation as a creative act. Translators accepted into this program join a lineage of practitioners whose work has shaped contemporary translation discourse. The deadline is 9 December 2030.