Tilted Axis Press Explained

Tilted Axis Press is a non-profit British publishing house specializing in the publication of contemporary Asian literature.^[1] Founded by Deborah Smith in 2015 following the success of her translation of Han Kang's The Vegetarian,^[2] the organization has gone on to publish 26 books and several chapbooks.^[3] Tilted Axis became known as the original translator and English language publisher of Tokyo Ueno Station by Miri Yu,^[4] which went on to receive critical acclaim as both a book and translation.^{[5] [6]} Their profile rose higher in 2022, when Tomb of Sand, written by Geetanjali Shree and translated by Daisy Rockwell, won the International Booker Prize, marking the first novel written in Hindi to take the award.^[7]

History

As of 2017, Tilted Axis Press made the largest share of their sales through traditional brick-and-mortar retail (35.1%), with the second largest channel being direct local and international sales through their website.^[8] Although the press has only received limited distribution outside of the United Kingdom, some books have been co-published internationally. For example, in 2018 The Lifted Brow, under their Brow Books imprint, co-published their translation of "The Impossible Fairytale" in Australia.^{[9] [10]}

In 2021 Tilted Axis launched a crowdfunding campaign to support the translation and publication of several chapbooks covering feminist literature, raising over in total. One of the collections in the series, Pa-Liwanag, received a positive review from CNN Philippines, who stated the book "proves that writings by farmers and peasants are overdue".^[11]

In July 2022, following Tilted Axis's victory at The Booker International Prize, Deborah Smith announced that she was stepping down as Publisher and Managing Director. At the same time, Kristen Vida Alfaro was announced as her successor in these roles.^[12]

Titles

!Book index^[13] !Title!Author!Translator!Publication Year

1	Panty	Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay	Arunava Sinha	2016
2	One Hundred Shadows	Hwang Jungeun	Jung Yewon	2016
3	Indigenous Species	Khairani Barokka		2016
4	The Sad Part Was	Prabda Yoon	Mui Poopoksakul	2017
5	The Impossible Fairytale	Han Yujoo	Janet Hong	2017
6	Abandon	Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay	Arunava Sinha	2017
7	The Devils’ Dance	Hamid Ismailov	Donald Rayfield	2018
8	Moving Parts	Prabda Yoon	Mui Poopoksakul	2018
9	I'll Go On	Hwang Jungeun	Emily Yae Won	2018
10	Tokyo Ueno Station	Yu Miri	Morgan Giles	2019
11	Sergius Seeks Bacchus	Norman Erikson Pasaribu	Tiffany Tsao	2019
12	The Yogini	Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay	Arunava Sinha	2019
13	Of Strangers and Bees	Hamid Ismailov	Shelley Fairweather-Vega	2019
14	Every Fire You Tend	Sema Kaygusuz	Nicholas Glastonbury	2019
	Killing Kanoko / Wild Grass on the Riverbank	Itō Hiromi	Jeffrey Angles	2020
15	Where the Wild Ladies Are	Matsuda Aoko	Polly Barton	2020
16	Arid Dreams	Duanwad Pimwana	Mui Poopoksakul	2020
17	No Presents Please	Jayant Kaikini	Tejaswini Niranjana	2020
18	Women Dreaming	Salma	Meena Kandasamy	2020
	Pa-Liwanag (Translating Feminisms)			2020
	Deviant Disciples (Translating Feminisms)			2020
19	Strange Beasts of China	Yan Ge	Jeremy Tiang	2020
20	Black Box	Shiori Ito	Allison Markin Powell	2021
21	Manaschi	Hamid Ismailov	Donald Rayfield	2021
22	Tomb of Sand	Geetanjali Shree	Daisy Rockwell	2021
23	Love in the Big City	Sang Young Park	Anton Hur	2021
24	Happy Stories, Mostly	Norman Erikson Pasaribu	Tiffany Tsao	2021
25	Chinatown	Thuận	Nguyễn An Lý	2022
26	Father May Be an Elephant and Mother a Small Basket, But...	Gogu Shyamala	Diia Rajan et al.	2022
	Violent Phenomena: 21 Essays on Translation			2022
27	So Distant From My Life	Monique Ilboudo	Yarri Kamara	2022
28	Unexpected Vanilla	Lee Hyemi	Soje	2022
29	No Edges	Swahili Authors (various)	Various Translators	2023
30	I Belong To Nowhere	Kalani Thakur Charal	Sipra Mukherjee, Mrinmoy Pramanick	2023

Notes and References

1. Web site: About. 2022-01-07. Tilted Axis Press. en-GB.
2. Web site: 2016-08-25. Translator Becomes Publisher: Deborah Smith and Tilted Axis Press. 2022-01-07. Publishing Perspectives. en-US.
3. Web site: Hession. Ronan. 2020-10-29.
   1. TranslatedLit An Introduction to Tilted Axis Press
   . 2022-01-07. Global Literature in Libraries Initiative. en.
4. News: Rich. Motoko. 2020-11-27. Her Antenna Is Tuned to the Quietest Voices. en-US. The New York Times. 2022-01-07. 0362-4331.
5. News: Review Yu Miri’s ‘Tokyo Ueno Station’ focuses its attention on the shamefully overlooked. en-US. Washington Post. 2022-01-07. 0190-8286.
6. Web site: Mem: 11177488. National Book Award winners announced Books+Publishing. 2022-01-07. en-AU.
7. News: Marshall. Alex. 2022-05-26. Hindi Novel Wins International Booker Prize for the First Time. en-US. The New York Times. 2022-10-23.
8. Web site: The business of small presses: 4 things we learnt the hard way The Bookseller. 2022-01-09. www.thebookseller.com.
9. Web site: Whitmore. Alice. Australia's taste for translated literature is getting broader, and that's a good thing. 2022-01-09. The Conversation. en.
10. Web site: Brow Books begins co-publishing partnership with Tilted Axis Press. 2022-01-09. BROW BOOKS. en-AU.
11. Web site: This new chapbook proves that writings by farmers and peasants are overdue. https://web.archive.org/web/20201211100050/https://cnnphilippines.com/life/culture/literature/2020/12/11/translating-feminisms-gantala-press.html. dead. 11 December 2020. 2022-01-09. cnn. en.
12. News: Comerford. Ruth. 2022-07-07. Alfaro made sole m.d. and publisher at Tilted Axis as Smith steps back. en-UK. The Bookseller. 2022-10-23.
13. Tilted Axis Press numbers every major release. Chapbooks and other publishings of that sort are not indexed.