Dalkey Archive Press

Dalkey Archive Press

Founded	1984
Country of origin	United States
Headquarters location	Champaign, Illinois
Distribution	W. W. Norton & Company
Publication types	Books
Official website	dalkeyarchive.com

Dalkey Archive Press is a publisher of fiction, poetry, and literary criticism in Illinois in the United States, specializing in the publication or republication of lesser known, often avant-garde works. The publisher is named for the novel The Dalkey Archive, by the Irish author Flann O'Brien.

Founded in Chicago in 1984, Dalkey Archive began as an adjunct press to the literary magazine Review of Contemporary Fiction, itself founded by John O'Brien, John Byrne, and Lowell Dunlap and dedicated to highlighting writers who were overlooked by the mainstream critical establishment. Initially, the Press reprinted works by authors that were featured in the Review but eventually branched out to other works, including original works that had not before been published. In December 2006, Dalkey Archive relocated to the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana to be part of the university's commitment to global projects that will complement the Press's commitment to translations.

Modeled on such publishers as Grove Press and New Directions, Dalkey Archive's emphasis is decidedly upon literary fiction, usually of a modernist or postmodernist bent. In the publisher's own words, Dalkey Archive "place[s] a heavy emphasis upon fiction that belongs to the experimental tradition of Sterne, Joyce, Rabelais, Flann O'Brien, Beckett, Gertrude Stein and Djuna Barnes." One of the publisher's primary goals is to keep all of its books in print, regardless of their commercial success, in the interest of maintaining the availability of works that it deems culturally and educationally valuable.

Selected publications

Dalkey Archive has published a variety of books and authors from many countries. In some cases, the publication of certain books by Dalkey Archive has led to a resurgence in their author's popularity, particularly in the United States, as happened with Felipe Alfau and Flann O'Brien. Some notable books and authors published by Dalkey Archive are listed below.

• Aidan Higgins, Flotsam and Jetsam and Bornholme Night Ferry
• Ann Quin, Berg and Passages
• António Lobo Antunes, Knowledge of Hell
• Ben Marcus, The Age of Wire and String
• Boris Vian, Heartsnatcher
• Carlos Fuentes, Terra Nostra
• Danilo Kis, A Tomb for Boris Davidovich
• David Markson, Wittgenstein's Mistress
• Djuna Barnes, Nightwood: The Original Version and Related Drafts
• Douglas Woolf, Wall to Wall
• Felipe Alfau, Chromos and Locos: A Comedy of Gestures
• Flann O'Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds and The Third Policeman
• G. Cabrera Infante, Three Trapped Tigers
• Gilbert Sorrentino, Blue Pastoral and Mulligan Stew
• Harry Mathews, My Life in CIA
• Henry Green, Concluding
• Hugh Kenner, Flaubert, Joyce, and Beckett: The Stoic Comedians
• Ishmael Reed, Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down
• Jean Echenoz, Chopin's Move
• Joshua Cohen, Witz
• Kass Fleisher, Talking out of School: Memoir of an Educated Woman
• Nicholas Mosley, Natalie Natalia
• Patrik Ouředník, Europeana: A Brief History of the Twentieth Century
• Raymond Queneau, Pierrot Mon Ami
• Robert Coover, A Night at the Movies
• Roger Boylan, Killoyle, An Irish Farce
• Viktor Shklovsky, Theory of Prose and Energy of Delusion
• William Gass, The Tunnel

External links

• Dalkey Archive Press home page
• Interview with Martin Riker nthWORD Magazine Shorts

References

• Dennis Barone, "What's in a Name? The Dalkey Archive Press." Critique 37.3 (1996): 222-41.