Contra Mundum Press

Contra Mundum Press Contra Mundum Press (CMP) is dedicated to the value and the indispensable importance of the individual voice. CMP will be publishing titles from all the fields in which the genius of the age traditionally produces the most challenging and innovative work: poetry, novels, theatre, philosophy – including philosophy of science and of mathematics – criticism, and essays.

Aside from works originally written in English, CMP publishes translations of writers who are of significant stature in their own cultures, and whose works in English translation have not been published, are out of print, or are infrequently and inaccurately published. Our principal interest is in Modernism, but works of innovation, vision, and genius from any era will be considered for publicatio

Aside from works originally written in English, CMP publishes translations of writers who are of significant stature in their own cultures, and whose works in English translation have not been published, are out of print, or are infrequently and inaccurately published. Our principal interest is in Modernism, but works of innovation, vision, and genius from any era will be considered for publicatio

Operating as usual

This morning, PEN.ORG announced that Pierre Joris will be receiving the 2021 PEN/RALPH MANHEIM AWARD FOR TRANSLATION. T...
03/25/2021

This morning, PEN.ORG announced that Pierre Joris will be receiving the 2021 PEN/RALPH MANHEIM AWARD FOR TRANSLATION.

The Manheim Award is bestowed to translators whose work has demonstrated a commitment to excellence through the body of their work. This comes upon our release of Joris’s much-feted translation of Paul Celan’s Microliths They Are, Little Stones. Joris also translated and co-wrote (with Syrian poet Adonis) our publication Conversations in the Pyrenees. For other works penned by/with Joris, see our two volumes of/on/by American visionary poet Robert Kelly.

Lydia Davis will present Joris with the award on 8 April.

To register, visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2021-pen-america-literary-awards-ceremony-registration-145766093309

This morning, PEN.ORG announced that Pierre Joris will be receiving the 2021 PEN/RALPH MANHEIM AWARD FOR TRANSLATION.

The Manheim Award is bestowed to translators whose work has demonstrated a commitment to excellence through the body of their work. This comes upon our release of Joris’s much-feted translation of Paul Celan’s Microliths They Are, Little Stones. Joris also translated and co-wrote (with Syrian poet Adonis) our publication Conversations in the Pyrenees. For other works penned by/with Joris, see our two volumes of/on/by American visionary poet Robert Kelly.

Lydia Davis will present Joris with the award on 8 April.

To register, visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2021-pen-america-literary-awards-ceremony-registration-145766093309

To start off #WomenHistoryMonth, check out this fantastic list of books compiled by CLMP, featuring two titles published...
03/03/2021
A Reading List for Women's History Month 2021 | Community of Literary Magazines and Presses

To start off #WomenHistoryMonth, check out this fantastic list of books compiled by CLMP, featuring two titles published by Contra Mundum Press: The Darkroom by Marguerite Duras and The Ladder of Oaths by Maura Del Serra.

To purchase or to get more information about The Darkroom visit:
https://www.contramundumpress.com/the-darkroom

To purchase or to get more information about The Ladder of Oaths visit:
https://www.contramundumpress.com/ladder-of-oaths

For Women’s History Month, observed annually during the month of March, we asked our members—independent presses, literary journals, and others—to share with us some of the books and magazines they recommend reading in celebration.   Nonfiction But Some of Us Are Brave Feminist Press | 1993 E...

From David Auerbach’s recent review of Genese Grill’s translation of Robert Musil’s Theater Symptoms, in the Los Angeles...
02/28/2021
The Other Condition: Robert Musil on Theater - Los Angeles Review of Books

From David Auerbach’s recent review of Genese Grill’s translation of Robert Musil’s Theater Symptoms, in the Los Angeles Review of Books:

“As with her previous translations of Musil’s writing (published in two volumes by Contra Mundum in 2015 and 2019), Grill brings great skill and finesse to Musil’s prose. She is possibly the most graceful English translator Musil has had, her lyrical efforts emphasizing how far from his rationalist caricature the author truly was.”

An immensely valuable collection of the great modernist’s plays and theater writings.

Genese Grill reads from Robert Musil’s Thought Flights at Crow Bookshop in Burlington, VT. From our website: Robert Musi...
02/07/2021
A Reading from a new Translation of

Genese Grill reads from Robert Musil’s Thought Flights at Crow Bookshop in Burlington, VT.

From our website: Robert Musil’s Thought Flights vividly evokes the secrets, challenges, and mundanities of interwar life in cosmopolitan Vienna & Berlin. The texts presented here have been selected by translator Genese Grill from Musil’s Nachlass and collected for the first time under the title Thought Flights. They include material originally published in journals, newspapers, and magazines — but not included in Musil’s Posthumous Papers of a Living Author — as well as literary fragments & heretofore unpublished texts. Despite the temporal, geographical, and cultural distance between Musil’s world & ours, our own time & troubles are all too recognizable in Musil’s portrayals of the “age of money,” simulation, and standardization. Thought Flights is a lament of contemporary complacency, optimism, and homogenization as well as a celebration of living words and original thought by one of the great Modernists of the 20th century. As an astonishing master of metaphor & self-described “Monsieur le Vivisecteur,” Musil explores the psyches and lives of himself & his contemporaries with illuminating insight.

Grill’s new translation can be found on the Contra Mundum Press catalog: https://www.contramundumpress.com/thought-flights.

Genese Gorilekova

Genese Grill, translator, reads "Thought Flights", a collection of short prose from the late Robert Musil at the Crow Bookshop in Burlington. For more info visit: http://www.crowbooks.com

07/13/2018

“America is being led to her death by racist power junkies coasting on a stupid trip—the fatal fantasy that soldiers and police can destroy with clubs and guns an indestructible force: the hunger of the human soul for dignity, justice, and freedom.” — Iceberg Slim

Michael Bishop on Mary Shaw's tr. of Claude Mouchard's ENTANGLED — PAPERS! — NOTEShttps://t.co/JUpkc2zQMa
07/10/2018
(Note de lecture) Claude Mouchard. "Entangled Papers ! Notes" par Michael Bishop

Michael Bishop on Mary Shaw's tr. of Claude Mouchard's ENTANGLED — PAPERS! — NOTES
https://t.co/JUpkc2zQMa

Auteur de plusieurs recueils (Perdre, 1989; L’Air, 1997) et d’études critiques majeures (Les Équivoques de la modernité, 1991; Qui si je criais…? Œuvres-témoignages dans les tourmentes du XXe siècle, 2007), Claude Mouchard nous donne ici, réunissant enfin un ensemble de textes remontant...

06/02/2018

You will never sell more than five hundred copies, as your work demands mental attention. — Ezra Pound to Marianne Moore, 16 December 1918

Book your tickets for the #BeyondWordsFest (14-21 May)! Discover the full line-up @ https://t.co/GOSmVfJvEA @ifru_london...
04/26/2018
Beyond Words Live Literature Festival -

Book your tickets for the #BeyondWordsFest (14-21 May)! Discover the full line-up @ https://t.co/GOSmVfJvEA @ifru_london @frenchbooksuk

From 14 to 21 May 2018, the Institut français will go Beyond Words with a festival bursting with bilingual live literature events, writers’ talks, musical performances, shared reading experiences, book launches, screenings of recent literary adaptations, staged readings... Beyond Words brings tog...

The @ifru_london is delighted to welcome Pierre Senges for its 2nd edition of the #BeyondWordsFest! More about the event...
04/26/2018
Page not found - Beyond Words Live Literature Festival

The @ifru_london is delighted to welcome Pierre Senges for its 2nd edition of the #BeyondWordsFest! More about the event here: https://t.co/8XVKBltS1O @ifru_london @frenchbooksuk

From 14 to 21 May 2018, the Institut français will go Beyond Words with a festival bursting with bilingual live literature events, writers’ talks, musical performances, shared reading experiences, book launches, screenings of recent literary adaptations, staged readings... Beyond Words brings tog...

03/11/2018
Tom Waits, Midtown

A video we made for MIDTOWN:
https://t.co/rebktf490V
Hope you dig it @tomwaits

Tom Waits, "Midtown," Rain Dogs Release date: September 30, 1985 Island Records Tom Waits: composer, producer Steven Hodges: drums Larry Taylor: bass "Hollyw...

02/10/2018
Crime and Punishment ep. 1 (part 1/8) eng sub

Today, the death of ... Dostoevsky, in 1881. In honor, the opening of an arresting Russian film version of C&P:
https://t.co/XIk1kXWkwY

/\ Russian and Soviet films with english subs on my channel. Bring a little piece of russian culture into your life! /\ USSR,1969 The film based on the epony...

02/08/2018

Artists are here to disturb the peace. — James Baldwin

02/02/2018

... you did not come after me into my inferno; I remained alone, and the difference between the old Inferno and Paradiso became blurred inside me.

Depardieu on women, from the FIAF talk on his book Innocent:https://t.co/a9qZF1m7pP
01/10/2018
Depardieu: women

Depardieu on women, from the FIAF talk on his book Innocent:
https://t.co/a9qZF1m7pP

World-renowned actor Gérard Depardieu speaking about his book INNOCENT at FIAF in NYC on September 18, 2017. Gérard Depardieu, Innocent, tr. by Rainer J. Han...

01/07/2018

Will the kitchen sink moralists forbade the reading of Sade, Genet, and Oscar Wilde, too? Must we burn Sade? Must we burn —? We think of Celan and Heidegger.

Depardieu on first love:https://t.co/ntzcVqxlGHTwo more videos to follow.
01/05/2018
Depardieu: first love

Depardieu on first love:
https://t.co/ntzcVqxlGH
Two more videos to follow.

World-renowned actor Gérard Depardieu speaking about his book INNOCENT at FIAF in NYC on September 18, 2017. Gérard Depardieu, Innocent, tr. by Rainer J. Han...

01/04/2018

The true theater has always appeared to me as the exercise of a dangerous and terrible act — Artaud

& is not a gimmick as some people (ignorantly) decry. Fittingly, Jan Tschichold's classic on the & is now back in print ...
01/03/2018
Pack : A Brief History of the Ampersand | Jan Tschichold + Et & Ampersands

& is not a gimmick as some people (ignorantly) decry. Fittingly, Jan Tschichold's classic on the & is now back in print in a beautiful new edition from Zeug Press
https://t.co/dTyVHW0iPL

Jan Tschichold (1902-1974, typographer, theorician and teacher) published in 1953 Formenwandlungen der &-Zeichen, a short historical essay dealing with the successive designs of the ampersand glyph. This text is structured by a collection of 288 carefully selected and commented ampersands, which

And still more from the FIAF Depardieu event — GD on friendship:https://t.co/yqOo5VQ9FO
01/02/2018
Depardieu: friendship

And still more from the FIAF Depardieu event — GD on friendship:
https://t.co/yqOo5VQ9FO

World-renowned actor Gérard Depardieu speaking about his book INNOCENT at FIAF in NYC on September 18, 2017. Gérard Depardieu, Innocent, tr. by Rainer J. Han...

More from the FIAF event — Depardieu on being lost & being in love:https://t.co/qfDeJ5zk2y
12/27/2017
Depardieu: being lost & being in love

More from the FIAF event — Depardieu on being lost & being in love:
https://t.co/qfDeJ5zk2y

World-renowned actor Gérard Depardieu speaking about his book INNOCENT at FIAF in NYC on September 18, 2017. Gérard Depardieu, Innocent, tr. by Rainer J. Han...

Plants, the Killing Machinehttps://t.co/4BspNxxCUo
12/26/2017
Plants the Killing Machine

Plants, the Killing Machine
https://t.co/4BspNxxCUo

Carnivorous plants have the most bizarre adaptations to low-nutrient environments. These plants obtain some nutrients by trapping and digesting various inver...

12/23/2017

artistic activity is suspect because it disturbs the comfort, the security of established meanings, — Roland Barthes

Exclusive clips from Gerard Depardieu @FIAFNY re his book INNOCENThttps://t.co/qKhxVitAN7With thanks to M-M Steckel et a...
12/22/2017
writing process

Exclusive clips from Gerard Depardieu @FIAFNY re his book INNOCENT
https://t.co/qKhxVitAN7
With thanks to M-M Steckel et alia.
More to follow.

World-renowned actor Gérard Depardieu speaking about his book INNOCENT and his writing process at FIAF in NYC on September 18, 2017. Gérard Depardieu, Innoce...

12/22/2017

Soon in @BOMBmagazine, Pierre Senges' “Moby Dick in Hollywood—Orson Welles”, an excerpt from his novel AHAB, tr. by @jsief and forthcoming from us in the future.

12/07/2017

Is danger the father of invention and creation? I dare to believe that is true, quite often. — George Steiner

12/05/2017

I have breathed aggressively, from the moment I was born. — René Char

12/03/2017

... one does not write, luminously, on a dark field, the alphabet of the stars, alone, thus indicates itself, sketched or interrupted; man pursues black on white. — Mallarmé

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Want to support a diverse literary landscape of indie presses and lit in translation? We can help! Check out this month’s list of books we'll be reviewing, and follow along! Migratory Birds by Mariana Oliver (Transit Books; tr. from the Spanish by Julia Sanches) Late Summer by Luiz Ruffato (Other Press; tr. from the Portuguese by Julia Sanches) Bride of the Sea by Eman Quotah (Tin House) Nudes by Elle Nash (Short Flight/Long Drive Books) Nights of Plague by Orhan Pamuk Populism by Benjamin Moffitt (Polity) The Hawthorn Archive by Avery Gordon (Fordham University Press) Subjects We Left Out by Naomi Washer (Veliz Books) Daybook From Sheep Meadow by Peter Dimock (Deep Vellum Publishing) A Beast in Paradise by Cecile Coulon (Europa Editions; tr. from the French by Tina Kover) An Apprenticeship or the Book of Pleasures by Clarice Lispector (New Directions; tr. from the Portuguese by Stefan Tobler) The Darkroom by Marguerite Duras (Contra Mundum Press; tr. from the French by Alta Ifland) Nancy by Bruno Lloret (Two Lines Press, The Center for the Art of Translation; tr. from the Spanish by Ellen Jones) Life in Space by Galine Rymbu (Ugly Duckling Presse; tr. from the French by Joan Brooks) The Freezer Door by Matilda Bernstein Sycamore (Semiotext(e))
“The theater could inspire a powerful spiritual and intellectual stream in life. It would then truly be a moral institution, not in the somewhat pious, policeman-like way that Schiller implied, but rather as a creative zone and as one of the most important nuclei of an eternally necessary social renewal.” // Ioanna Kostopoulou reviews Genese Grill’s translation of “Theater Symptoms,” a collection of Robert Musil’s investigations on “the peculiar pathology of theater” in interwar Vienna. "Theater Symptoms" is available now from Contra Mundum Press. https://buff.ly/2QUi0QZ
Discover new books from Contra Mundum Press, Turtle Point Press, BOA Editions, Etruscan Press, Catalyst Press, Deep Vellum Publishing, White Pine Press, Green Writers Press, Tolsun Books & more:
Today marks the beginning of #WomensHistoryMonth! Find a book (or more) for the occasion with our latest reading list, featuring titles from The Feminist Press, Contra Mundum Press, Regal House Publishing, Hanging Loose, A Public Space, Soberscove Press, Ig Publishing & more:
Man Ray's favorite novel by Marquis de Sade: Aline and Valcour, or the philosophical novel
If you missed Volumes 1 of the Indie Lit Fair, it's not too late! Browse exclusive deals and promotions for indie presses and lit mags, including Broken Pencil Magazine, Contra Mundum Press, Electric Literature, The Feminist Press at CUNY, KAYA Press, Lucky Jefferson, Rain Taxi, Transit Books & more!
Join us and PEN America at the virtual Indie Lit Fair! This week, find special offers from Broken Pencil Magazine, Contra Mundum Press, Electric Literature, The Feminist Press at CUNY, Great weather for media, The Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, KAYA Press, Lucky Jefferson, No, Dear Magazine, Literaturhaus, One Story, Rain Taxi, The 3rd Thing, and Transit Books.