Scottish indie 3TimesRebel Press focusing on women and minority languages to launch
A radical Scottish indie focused on publishing work translated from minority languages by women is to launch next month.
Based in Dundee, Scotland, and founded by Bibiana Mas, 3TimesRebel Press will publish English translations of fiction in languages including Catalan, Basque and Gaelic.
Kicking off its list on 14th July will be Mothers Don’t, a thriller written by Katixa Agirre and translated from Basque by Kristin Addis. Described as "half way between a thriller and a journalistic chronicle", the narrative follows a mother who kills her twins while another woman is about to give birth. The book has already been translated into Spanish, French, Dutch and Catalan, selling more than 10,000 copies according to the publisher.
Meanwhile, Dead Lands, the second novel on the list, asks difficult questions about human nature and takes the reader into a "sordid world, one from which it is difficult to emerge without feeling both anger and compassion". It is the debut of 26-year-old Núria Bendicho, who spent her youth travelling and reading in libraries and is mostly a self-taught writer. It is currently at its fifth print run in Spain, and has been translated from Catalan by mother and daughter duo Martha Tennent and Maruxa Relaño.
The press intends to centre work with "disruptive narratives", and aims to publish stories that challenge prejudices and "spark fruitful debate around the key issue of contemporary society, from abortion to post-natal psychosis, and from prostitution to abuse within lesbian relationships".
Its books are locally printed in the UK using responsibly sourced paper, to minimise their carbon footprint, and the press is committed to supporting charitable initiatives that support and empower women in the UK. Its books are designed by award-winning typographist Enric Jardí, with a cover created by artist and illustrator Anna Pont Armengol.
Mas, publisher, editor and director of 3TimesRebel Press, said: “Through stories that revolve us, 3TimesRebel Press will create the space to talk about challenging thoughts that we all have inside, but that sometimes we don’t feel comfortable to share – always without judgement.
"Let’s make the act of putting ourselves in the other’s shoes a way of transgressing, in order to leave taboos behind, to become freer.
"Our first two titles are very special for me: Mothers Don’t is a book that touches each and every one of the strings inside me: motherhood and that great shadow that accompanies it, a shadow that we all carry but at the same time we all hide. And Dead Lands, the first work by a young and powerful woman, tells us from the darkest places how family blood binds us, and how the weight of patriarchy suffocates us.”
