Maclehose Press
Catherine Mansfield interviews Christopher MacLehose, who brought to our attention a certain girl with a certain dragon tattoo... and many more books in translation...
Last Monday morning I arrived at the London Review of Books' bright, airy café to meet with Christopher MacLehose and Katharina Bielenberg of MacLehose Press. Just down the road from the Quercus headquarters in Bloomsbury Square, the café has become something of an unofficial office for these two big names in the world of translated fiction publishing. When I arrived they were just finishing one meeting and when I left it was time for the next. After all, the LRB café is a fitting meeting place. The adjoining bookshop has always showcased the best of translated literature and many MacLehose titles feature amongst the tempting collection of books on display. This is just one sign of the spectacular success experienced by the imprint since its first titles were published in 2008.
Christopher MacLehose had already had a big impact on translated literature publishing during his years at Harvill Press, where he introduced British readers to writers including Henning Mankell and Peter Høeg, author of Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow. After Harvill was bought by Random House in 2002, the influential independent Quercus invited Christopher to join them as publisher of his own international literature imprint: MacLehose Press. Katharina Bielenberg, previously head of sales at the then independent Harvill, joined him a couple of years ago. After some time spent under the vaguely military titles of 'right hand woman' and 'second-in-command', Katharina now holds the more conventional title of Associate Publisher. The MacLehose list is completely separate in terms of the authors they take on, although sales, marketing, rights and editorial support all come from Quercus.
With Christopher's eye for exciting new writers, it's perhaps no surprise that MacLehose Press already has some great success stories to tell. Glancing at their catalogue, many familiar titles jump out at me. Notably, the last two winners of the Independent Prize for Foreign Fiction - The Armies by Colombian author Evelio Rosero and Brodeck's Report by Philippe Claudel. And just the other day I saw Yalo by Elias Khoury win the Saif Ghobash-Banipal Prize for translation from Arabic. And of course, no discussion of MacLehose Press would be complete without mentioning their biggest success story to date: the Millennium Trilogy by Swedish sensation Stieg Larsson. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was one of the first titles published by the imprint in 2008. The MacLehose editions of the three books have gone on to sell over 8 million copies in total, topping bestseller lists and gripping the public imagination.
Striking gold with a huge bestseller in the first year of publishing has put the press in a strong position compared to other small imprints. As Katharina says, 'If every small publisher had one book which would carry a whole bunch of others for a few years, it makes everything possible.' In their case, it has given them the ability to cast their net wider and room to expand. From initially planning to publish between six and ten titles a year, MacLehose published 18 books in 2010. However, this figure will rarely rise above 20 books annually, as long as the list as a whole is making ends meet and being a success for the writers they are publishing. 'Beyond that it turns into a very different set-up, I think,' Katharina says. MacLehose currently publish or plan to publish the work of 68 authors, translated from a staggering 18 different languages. Around 20% of the current list is crime fiction; a further 10% is non fiction and the rest is fiction. The focus is proudly international: around 95% of MacLehose Press titles are translated from other languages.
Publishing Stieg Larsson has also boosted the reputation of translated literature in general, which is often seen as inaccessible and difficult. 'I think what it did is that it made everybody involved in the selling of books and the marketing of books think hello, this is translated fiction but people are buying it' Christopher says. Christopher and Katharina don't believe that UK readers actually have a problem with buying literature in translation. In fact, they argue, this perception comes from within the publishing industry itself. 'I think the first hurdle is the central book buyers,' says Katharina. 'If you have one buyer who is translation adverse it doesn't even get as far as the reader. You have a very few people making decisions for an awful lot of books.' However, she argues, this attitude does seem to be changing. 'I think that step by step and through the years that has been proven wrong by the exceptions to the rule and the best seller lists.' Yet, when I asked Christopher whether publishing the Millennium Trilogy has changed attitudes towards translated literature, he seemed less certain. 'I don't believe that any one publisher can break that impregnable perception,' he says. 'You can only keep on banging your head against the wall and see what happens.'
What, I wonder, is the secret of their success? One thing that becomes clear when talking to Christopher and Katharina is that although the imprint itself is very small, it's part of a much bigger picture. While the UK publishing industry sometimes seems a little isolated from the rest of the continent, Christopher and Katharina are always looking towards Europe. As well as relying on a very international 'committee of readers' - including translators, other editors and even MacLehose authors - they keep a close eye on the work of European publishing houses. 'You begin to know which other European publishers might share your tastes,' Katharina points out. 'If, say, a Swedish book has been bought by an Italian publisher whose list you know and respect, it will give you an indication about whether it'll sit in your own list.'
But why are the two of them so interested in translated literature in the first place? In Katharina's case, her European background has made a difference. 'I'm part German, part Irish,' she tells me, 'and I grew up in London. I don't feel British at all so for me it feels like quite a natural thing to be working with a company that is much more outward looking.' As for Christopher, having a French wife - literary scout Koukla MacLehose - 'who reads incessantly...mostly from French and Italian' has clearly been an enormous influence. But Christopher's interest in international literature goes back a long way, to his days as literary editor at the Scotsman in the 1960s. 'I used to publish regular reviews of what was being published in France and Germany,' he says. 'It wasn't something that readers at the Scotsman necessarily badly wanted, but it was really interesting to discover what was going on outside Britain.'
This habit of looking towards Europe is crucial to the work of the press. It was evident, for example, in the case of Love Virtually by Daniel Glattauer, a new MacLehose title out this month. Translated by Katharina and her husband Jamie Bulloch, the book is again aimed at a wider, more commercial market than is typical for most translated fiction. Although this team have high hopes for the book, Katharina suspects some of the more commercial UK publishers wouldn't take the idea of a comic German novel seriously. However, Christopher is confident about their decision, particularly because of the book's success in Europe. 'Look at the publishers in Europe for that book. One of the best Italian houses, a huge publishing house in France... It's extremely readable, great fun, but it's also written by a highly intelligent man. This is a writer of the first rank!' We'll have to wait to see whether Love Virtually takes off in the UK market. Then again, if history is anything to go by, Christopher's hunches do tend to be correct.
After finishing our tea, I asked Christopher whether it was true that we had to meet in the morning because he always walks his dog for three hours in the afternoon. 'No, it's not true at all,' he tells me, 'sometimes we walk in the morning.' Looking wistfully out of the café window at the sunshine outside, he said, 'On a day like this I long to be on the mountain.' Katharina explains that the LRB bookshop is not the only unofficial office for MacLehose Press. 'We often have to follow him to the mountain. We have meetings on Hampstead Heath.' These office spaces may be unconventional, but they seem to be doing the job. With the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize just around the corner, it'll be interesting to see whether MacLehose Press can make it a hat-trick. Whatever the outcome, there's no doubt that in just a few years, MacLehose Press has become the one to watch.
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