Dedalus Books
Dedalus Books has been twenty-eight years well spent. With an eclectic catalogue ranging from absinthe to literary suicides to Flemish fantasy, it must be in a tiny minority of small presses who have made success away from mainstream. In Dedalus’ case, that means miles away.
Dedalus is all about ‘distorted reality.’ In their own words, this is a place where ‘the bizarre, the unusual, the grotesque and the surreal meld in a kind of intellectual fiction.’
After producing their first list of three titles in 1983, they have sought to find the most unique, innovative and insanely weird fiction from the dark heart of Europe and vet it against commercial publishing. It seems to have worked. The press has since sold the rights to original titles in twenty-three languages.
Still, despite now having a worldwide audience, Dedalus is still very European. Think about the dreamy aesthetics of opium dens in Paris and tassel-clad sex-acts, and then polarise this with gin-fuelled unearthly creatures swinging their limbs through Prague’s winter alleys. If you have this image in your mind I imagine you’ll be quite close to the general idea of Dedalus’ literary aim.
Along with contemporary authors – both English language and in translation – Dedalus has published greats like Goethe, Pushkin, Voltaire and Verga. Their catalogue is split into series’ ranging from Euro Shorts to Decadence to City Noir.
Titles include a blackly-comic satire on chic lit-and the burlesque life story of two Siamese twins. But its not all complete lunacy. There are some great novels expressing the intricacies of art, predicting the complexities of modernism and giving insight into some of the greatest artistic minds of the last two centuries.
What is truly spectacular, however, is the wonderfully specific list of anthologies. Who wouldn’t want to dip into The Dedalus Book of Literary Suicide on a gloomy Sunday, or spend an afternoon in the Royal Parks getting sozzled with The Dedalus Book of Gin?
You can get a book of folklore originating from almost any obscure, neglected European nation you can think of. My favourite, for which I have found no comparison, is The Dedalus Book of Sexual Ambiguity. Role-playing and gender-bending from the likes of Djuna Barnes, Balzac, Oscar Wilde and Anais Nin. Incredible.
Jen Thompson
What do you think?