Oxygen Books' new series of travel books will highlight the best fiction and non-fiction about the world's favourite destinations.
And they want your help.
‘It probably wasn’t the most sensible thing we’d ever done,’ says writer and publisher Heather Reyes. ‘In 2007 I was on the slopes of the Acropolis with my partner writer and journalist Malcolm Burgess when an idea struck: why wasn’t there a guide providing a selection of the best-ever writing on Athens to give us the real flavour of the place?
We searched the bookshops but couldn’t find anything. Back home, we found there was nothing comparable on other European cities either. So we felt the fear and Oxygen Books and our city-lit series was born.’
Heather and Malcolm wanted to ensure that each volume contained the cream of fiction and non-fiction, literary and popular, contemporary and classic, including journalism and blogs, with a big emphasis on translated writing.
‘Both of us love European cities and translated writing and were determined to offer a popular window to writing that might otherwise have a low readership or not even be available in English at all,’ says series editor Heather.
‘As well as big names like Kate Mosse, Julian Barnes and Joanne Harris, and standard classics from Flaubert, Victor Hugo and Gertrude Stein, city-lit Paris, out in April 2009 with over 60 extracts, includes contemporary French writers such as Faïza Guène and Muriel Barbery, plus younger writers like Abdelkader Djemai and Daniel Maximin who have never been translated into English.
The series is already attracting a lot of interest from writers and the trade – Kate Mosse has called it ‘brilliant ... the best way to get under the skin of a city’ – and has received support from the British Centre for Literary Translation.
2009 sees city-lit Paris, London, Dublin, Berlin and Amsterdam. Heather is very happy to receive suggested contributions for Amsterdam and Berlin, either translated or in the original language, preferably with page numbers and publisher details. Contributors will be acknowledged in the relevant city-lit volume while their writers and translators – who would all be paid – will reach a wide readership.
To contact Oxygen Books email heather@oxygenbooks.co.uk or call 01277 213849
