In 2007, Chad Post, Nate Furl and I were invited—”invited” being a handy way to elide a personal odyssey which spanned several months and included two Target Superstores and at least one suicidal roadside super-hawk—by the University of Rochester to start a new independent, trade-oriented publishing company dedicated to literature in translation, which came to be called Open Letter. Once on campus, we spent a few months organizing things: creating an innovative structure for the press, starting a weblog for international literature and reviews (Three Percent), and making all sorts of fun decisions about how we were going to publish the books. And when it was finally time to start signing on authors, Chad and I never really had a doubt about who we wanted to work with first: Dubravka Ugresic. In fact, in addition to being the first author we’ve published, you could say that Dubravka had a lot to do with Open Letter existing at all.

Before I started at Open Letter, I worked for HarperPerennial and Ecco at HarperCollins, and it so happens that the first book I bought for Ecco was Dubravka’s The Ministry of Pain. I heard about Dubravka through a sample translation of the novel that Words Without Borders had posted on their site, and, after a little bit of convincing, Dan Halpern was nice enough to let me put in an offer on the book. Since I had come to Dubravka’s work a little late, what I didn’t know is that Chad had already, very successfully, published Dubravka’s Thank You For Not Reading and had made an offer on The Ministry of Pain as well. Fortunately for me, our offer was accepted, and Chad got in touch with me shortly thereafter, to talk about anything we might be able to do for Dubravka together—yes, he really is that gracious. Once we got to talking, we discovered that we had a lot of similar ideas about publishing and about literature in general, and we became friends, talking every now and again and eventually working together on Reading the World.

One thing led to another, which eventually led to the “invitation” I mentioned earlier, which led to Open Letter, and as soon as we got past the initial planning phases for the press, we immediately contacted Dubravka’s agent, Laura Susijn. Laura told us about Dubravka’s latest book, Nobody’s Home, a collection of essays which was going to be published in the UK by Telegram Books. As I remember it, we didn’t spend much time debating whether or not to make an offer on the book; Dubravka’s writing—cosmopolitan, witty, whipsmart—fits in exactly with what Open Letter is trying to do. Besides the personal connection we have with her, and the fact that she was the perfect author for our list, Nobody’s Home, which serves as a sort of manifesto of the displaced and is a wry examination of the international order, was the perfect book to set the tone for what we hope to accomplish.

Once that was decided, the rest of the process was pretty easy. Ellen Elias-Bursac’s translation was wonderful, and since she’s close to Dubravka we felt confident that any editorial suggestions we made, most of which were fairly minor, would have her blessing and that Dubravka would be happy with the translation as a whole; it isn’t often that you have a translator and an author who have such a good relationship. Dubravka was also kind enough to add another chapter to the book, which was a nice addition for us since the UK edition of the book came out a year ago, and it was gratifying to be able to include some of her more “up to the minute” pieces in our edition.

The best thing about being an editor, and maybe the best part of working in publishing, is that not only do you get to recommend books that you love to an audience—and we have the good fortune to be in a position to only have to publish books that we feel are unique pieces of art—but you get to interact with the books and their authors really intimately. That recommendation bit may be a cliché, but it’s no less true for being one, and I’m proud to have gotten the chance to know Dubravka and to work with her on a few of her books, and, what’s more, we’re really proud to have the opportunity to recommend Dubravka’s writing to readers—and we’d be prouder still if they decide to buy a copy of Nobody’s Home.

E.J. Van Lanen is an editor at Open Letter Books, and Nobody’s Home is their first publication. Dubravka Ugresic will be reading and discussing her book at 57th Street Books on September 30th and again the next day at the Hopleaf as part of the Bookslut Reading Series.