What does it mean to live a multilingual life where translation is embedded in our daily lives? For Ilan Stavans, his impressive collection of languages and activities define his multilingual life as a state of “feeling peripheral;” art historian and scholar Teju Cole writes: “Translation, (and I add, publishing literature in translation) after all, is literary analysis mixed with sympathy, a matter for the brain as well as the heart;” and Argentinian writer and translator Cesar Aira has said: “Translation is one of those things it’s best not to talk about. Let them happen, there they are, and there you have it.” Laberinto Press is a rarity within the Canadian literary ecosystem, by virtue of its place of origin and production, Edmonton, Alberta. We are the only BIPOC owned independent press in Alberta publishing work by hyphened Canadian writers and global literature in translation.
I have a graduate degree in art History from the University of Alberta which I completed as an adult, but I do not have formal studies in literature. My literary education comes from the memory of my father’s library, whose books included many of the authors of the Latin American boom and the outrageous bedtime tales of my grandparents about children who misbehaved, ran away from home, and were picky eaters. I come from the geographic and social periphery, a 15,000 people rural town 70 km away from Buenos Aires called Brandsen, Argentina.
Laberinto Press was born by chance. In 2019 I had just completed a mentorship program for BIPOC writers from the Writers Guild of Alberta. Discouraged from submitting my writing due to multiple rejections, with a writer colleague, ESL like me and far more established in his home country, we applied for a local Arts council grant to edit an anthology inviting our writer friends from the mentorship program. When filling the application, my friend asked me: “And who will be the publisher?” We pondered the different options; the traditional route meant facing a delay way beyond the year-long period allocated to spend the grant; we could also publish ourselves, but I had ruled out the self-publishing route. Uttering the words “Why don’t you become a publisher?” My friend had me fill in the publisher box with my name on it, and we sent the grant away, hoping to succeed. As it turns out, at the onset of the Pandemic, we received the news the grant was ours to produce our first anthology, Beyond the Food Court and create our press, which I called Laberinto. The name is an homage to Jorge Luis Borges and his life-long obsession with stories as infinite libraries, infinite memories, labyrinths, and forking paths, where readers find and lose each other in narrative.
Fast forward four years: Alberta universities, festival organizers, and the publishing community (BPAA) have embraced us fully, awarding our press the Best Publisher of the Year Award in 2024. We are slowly making our way East. We launched our latest anthology, Beyond the Park this Spring in Montreal, and would love to pitch our innovative catalogue and authors to festival organizers in Ontario. Since 2020 we have published 40 hyphened Canadian authors from across Canada, in four anthologies following Italo Calvino’s poetics of the senses, and one short story collection. Each of our books have embraced translation differently. In the words of Cesar Aira: “There they are, and there you have it.” We invite you to check our catalogue at www.laberintopress.com or on IG: @wearelaberintopress and FB: Laberinto Press.
Luciana Erregue is an Argentinian-Canadian art historian, author, translator, cultural worker and award winning publisher. Luciana is the director of Laberinto Press and navigates life from North and South, in English and Spanish.