In Honor of Helen R. Lane

Yesterday, we at Open Letter released the new edition of The Event by Juan José Saer, translated from the Spanish by Helen R. Lane. (Note: All Saer’s books are 25% off until the end of the month.) You can read all about our history publishing Saer (one of Open Letter’s most published authors) here, and check out an excerpt from The Event here. But given the role that Helen R. Lane played not just in this Saer title, but in her role making a remarkable number of important authors available to English-readers everywhere, it felt like the right time to run this piece that Ronald Christ wrote for CONTEXT shortly after her passing. Translators and the lives they live are just as important as the authors they work on.

One personal note: I did have the opportunity to meet Helen in person on one occasion. It was at an event also attended by Svetlana Alexievich connected to a publishing summit orchestrated by the Lannan Foundation in Santa Fe. (Glenn Schaeffer, CEO of Mandalay Bay at the time, who helped fund UNLV’s translation program also helicoptered in. What a time to be in nonprofit publishing!) I remember this gathering really well for a plethora of reasons: seeing a couple make love alongside the Santa Fe River (they waved to me and laughed), hanging out all night with Michael Silverblatt and John O’Brien, meeting Alexievich as Voices from Chernobyl was in the works (the original, Keith Gessen-translated, superior version), getting the idea that became Reading the World and jumpstarted the interest in translation among indie booksellers, and asking Helen Lane to consider translating Eloy Urroz’s The Obstacles. (Ezra Fitz ended up doing a brilliant job on this and Eloy’s other books, so NBD in terms of that request.)

Getting far afield here, but I do honestly believe these sorts of gatherings—all Lannan funded presses were there, including BOA Editions, Copper Canyon, Graywolf, I believe Archipelago, others—are vital to the future of nonprofit publishing and I wish some funder would step in and convene a series of meetings with the ten or so top thinkers about the funding and promotion of literature. We need new strategies, and personally, I would love to theorize with other like-minded folk about the future.

But this is a post about Helen R. Lane. So, take it away Ronald!

Helen R. Lane,