Stone Bridge Press is proud to announce a new partnership with MONKEY New Writing From Japan to publish novels, stories, and graphic narratives by innovative Japanese authors and rising international stars.
MONKEY New Writing from Japan, a literary magazine based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and produced in Pittsburgh and Tokyo, and Stone Bridge Press of Berkeley, California, announce a new imprint devoted to contemporary Japanese fiction in translation.
The MONKEY imprint will focus on novels, stories, and graphic narratives by innovative Japanese authors and rising international stars. The editors of the literary magazine MONKEY New Writing from Japan—Ted Goossen, Motoyuki Shibata, and Meg Taylor—will work with Stone Bridge publisher Peter Goodman to acquire brilliant translations of exciting new work. Using Stone Bridge Press’s distribution channels through Consortium Book Sales and Ingram International, the venture will be able to deliver these works to audiences worldwide and in every format.
The MONKEY imprint comes at a time of growing popular interest in Japanese writers as well as new commercial and critical success. Many MONKEY contributors have already been recognized. For example, the New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2020 included four titles translated from Japanese, including Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami, translated by David Boyd and Sam Bett—all three contributors to MONKEY. Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda, translated by Polly Barton, appeared on Time magazine’s 100 Best Books of 2020—both Matsuda and Barton are regular contributors to MONKEY.
According to Meg Taylor, President of the MONKEY nonprofit corporation and Managing Editor of the literary magazine, “The new MONKEY imprint at Stone Bridge will be well positioned to ride this ever-expanding wave of interest in Japanese fiction.”
MONKEY also seeks to elevate the contribution of Japanese-English translators by paying them competitive rates and a share of the royalties and by acknowledging them on the cover as well as the title page. Taylor emphasizes, “We plan to work with the translators we’ve developed strong working relationships with through MONKEY New Writing from Japan—who happen to be among the best Japanese-to-English translators in the world.”
“It is really exciting to be involved with MONKEY and they are a great fit for our Japan-focused list,” says Stone Bridge Publisher Peter Goodman. “Publishing literary works is challenging on so many levels. Quality is job one, of course, but getting the word out, getting reviews, and reaching audiences are just as important. The MONKEY imprint will produce amazing works, and we are well positioned to deliver them to eager readers no matter where in the world they are.”
The first title in the MONKEY imprint is expected in spring 2022 with additional works in every subsequent release cycle.
MONKEY New Writing from Japan is the English-language offspring of the Tokyo-based Japanese literary magazine MONKEY, founded by Motoyuki Shibata, one of Japan’s most acclaimed translators of American fiction (Paul Auster, Laird Hunt, Steven Millhauser, and Richard Powers, among others). Selections are made by Shibata, Ted Goossen, one of the leading translators of Japanese fiction working today (Haruki Murakami, Hiromi Kawakami, and Sachiko Kishimoto, among others), and Taylor.
Stone Bridge Press was established in 1989 and is known for its many books about Japan in areas as diverse as literature, travel, design, language, and popular culture. Publisher Peter Goodman previously worked for nearly a decade in Tokyo for Charles Tuttle and Kodansha International. Stone Bridge translations have four times been awarded the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature from the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia University.