From WILL STONE, poet & literary translator
As a practising poet and literary translator, a former and current Arc author, who has two vital collections of European poetry in translation forthcoming in bilingual editions, I am writing to express my severe dissatisfaction and consternation at the decision to relieve this excellent and long standing publishing house of their funds. Without this crucial support they cannot function and if they don’t function, our culture, which is already saddled with increasing insularity in a dumbed down commercially putrefied climate will suffer further petrifaction.
The books that Arc has produced for forty years and more have all been explicitly chosen for the quality of their content. This publisher does not serve fashions, nor does it hide behind celebrity profiles, it simply produces important work from around the globe which would otherwise never reach these islands at all. Year on year the small yet industrious staff at Arc slave away to reveal books to the English public which will serve to enrich their lives. They are the only independent publisher with such a wide ranging and rich list of poetry in translation, and their hallmark is trusted and respected throughout the publishing world, bilingual editions with excellent introductions by leading scholars and writers.
It seems incredible, mind boggling to me that the Arts Council decides to reduce funding on a publisher with such a record of success, who is actively promoting integration and progress through foreign language exchange, especially in a time when foreign language education in schools and universities has all but collapsed. What sort of a nation are we when we pander to the monoglots and ignore our neighbouring countries and their authors? A poor one becoming poorer. Arc has been reaching out to new readers for decades, and their Visible Poets series especially has been ground breaking, receiving plaudits from across the literary world. Arc authors and translators have been regularly short-listed for international prizes and reviewed in the leading literary papers. I should know because I have written some of those reviews. So I wish to say here emphatically to the Arts Council, in this case, you have made a most dreadful mistake, which I urge you to rectify at the earliest opportunity.
Let this great small publisher continue their sterling work unhindered, without insecurity, let the reader find his or her deeper cultural satisfaction in the books they provide and do them the honour after four decades of sweat and toil to value them and all they will leave behind for future generations.