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I have a good amount of books from the Pre-Textos publisher. I have a special affection for The gates of heaven, Jerzy Andrzejewski, with Sergio Pitol translation. I like your fat books like Manuscript found in ZaragozaJan Potocki because they use a nice rustic paper for which weigh little even eight hundred pages. They have an anthology of Chekhov, with only ten long-term stories, which seems to me the best example of falling in love with this author before moving on to more complete flourishes. They also published much of the best contemporary poetry, like that of Louise Glück.
In recent days the poet’s name has been mixed with a controversy over a contractual issue which, not being handled with discretion between publishers and agents, has passed to the simultaneous use of media judgment. The press reported that the new Nobel laureate “betrayed” his publisher by fourteen years and seven titles to be published with a publishing group offering more money. They release curious phrases, such as that Glück “was not prepared to handle a success of this magnitude” or sexistically claim that “he is cheating on his 14-year-old partner”. They ridicule the poet, assure her that she should be “ashamed” and, without knowing her, hurl a series of insults at her. In social networks it is called the boycott against it, to which booksellers and those who have never read it subscribe. Her editor in Pre-Texts utters an unloving phrase: “Unfortunately the poet Glück will soon be remembered as little as she was before”. In fact, the same publisher declared after the news of the Nobel that he would not make re-editions of Glück’s work because “nothing was sold”; and this was able to pave the way for the author’s agent, in a “rogue”, to start looking for another publisher.
Even the sentences against the practices of the literary agency are in the press; their. My empathy is with Glück, it will always be with a writer, who is the weakest link in the publishing “market” chain. We must remember the precarious situation of an author with few sales in the Spanish-speaking world, where even small publishers without the ability to distribute internationally often apply for world rights in Spanish.
An open letter addressed to the Nobel laureate, in solidarity with the publisher Pre-Textos and signed by hundreds of cultural and literary figures, says “we believe that editors and authors must be allies for better or for worse”. Is very good. We make a letter with the same intention, but more general, which goes to all authors, publishers, agents and booksellers. But the letter is now circulating drafted specifically to condemn a poet. Why do we now show so much solidarity with a publisher when we’ve never done it with writers? Yes, we must be united in good and bad. Because no one has addressed these words to the many publishers who excrete many authors from their publishers? For cold commercial reasons they are fired, interrupted, their books destroyed; and the expelled writer does not seem to seek compassion from the media.
If there is really something bad about this episode, don’t put the magnifying glass on the poet’s relationship with his publisher, but on how publishers compete with each other. There is a lot of foul play in that competition. Because the publishing world has not created a code of ethics to avoid abuses by large against medium or small and that the correctness?
In this upside-down world, editors seated on the throne and writers have assumed the role of courtiers.
Pre-Textos is a high-altitude publishing house, one of those that readers appreciate its existence every morning. But the views against Louise Glück were drawn from the publisher’s point of view alone, without her involvement. And when a couple breaks up, often the spouse we are talking to is right. Pre-Texts has over a thousand authors; Glück only has one. Pre-Textos still has a long future. Glück is seventy-seven years old. You have not really earned the right to do what you want with your poetry? And do we have the right to sign a letter to teach him moral lessons?
The coin has two sides. In one the publisher says: “Love me because I kept publishing you even though only two hundred copies of your books are sold.” In the other, the author silently thinks: “If you only sell two hundred books, you are doing your job very badly.” For whatever reason, poor sales humiliate the author and sanctify the publisher.
Each case, each author-publisher relationship is different and, yes, it is somewhat similar to that of a marriage. The song “look what I sacrificed for you” is as boring in the publishing world as it is in married life. Loyalty is important, but it must be fueled with fire. There are very good editors, but sometimes they are as good as Charles Bovary.
Now that Glück’s verses have affected hundreds and hundreds of publishers in dozens and dozens of languages, doesn’t he have the right to ignore contractual issues and entrust everything to his agent? An agent which, by the way, is what many writers wish they had. Moreover, as it happens, in the case of foreign countries and languages, the relationship with the agent is more fraternal than with the publisher.
“Fourteen Years of Loyalty” is mentioned in every note on this subject to praise the publisher and slander the poet. But she accumulates fifty-seven years of loyalty to herself, since she got over her anorexia and started writing her first poems; for, in fact, she was nobody, and nobody gave her anything. Ever since they told him, like all poets, that he was going to starve.
Anyone who knows the life, vocation and adversity of a poet will know that no one has the right to say that poets are motivated by economic interests. The poet lives for his verses and the rest is given in addition, if at all.
Enjoy, dear Louise, your Nobel laureate; Enjoy the fact that your verses have flown so high and listen to the signs that you are riding. You, Louise, you’re a poet and you feel like a poet, knowing he was human. Others are mortal and judge as mortal, believing themselves gods.
all happiness
draws the anger of Fate.
They are sisters, savages …
eventually they did
no emotion but envy.
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