About Northwestern University Press

Northwestern University Press is dedicated to publishing works of enduring scholarly and cultural value, extending the university's mission to a community of readers throughout the world.

Prestigious authors first published by Northwestern University Press have been the recipients of numerous prizes, including the Nobel Prize for Literature and the National Book Award. From its inception Northwestern University Press has striven to be at the forefront in publishing not only scholarly works in different disciplines, but also quality works of fiction, nonfiction, and literary criticism.

Founded in 1893, the early years of the Press were dedicated to the publication of legal periodicals and scholarly books dealing with the law. In 1957 the Press was established as a separate university publishing company and began expanding its offerings with new series in various fields, including African studies, phenomenology and existential philosophy, literature, and literary criticism.

In the late 1960s, the press published Viola Spolin's landmark volume, Improvisation for the Theater: A Handbook of Teaching and Directing Techniques. This "bible" of improvisational theater has sold more than one hundred thousand copies since its publication in 1963 and, with several other Spolin titles, forms a cornerstone of the Press's publishing program. The Press continues its commitment to Theater and Performance Studies, most recently with the publication of Mary Zimmerman's Metamorphoses, the script of her Broadway show that was nominated for the 2002 Tony Award for Best Play and Best Scenic Design, and won the 2002 Tony Award for Best Director.

The 1960s also saw the beginnings of the Northwestern University Press-Newberry Library alliance in publishing the definitive edition of the writings of Herman Melville in conjunction with the Modern Language Association.

The Press won major translation awards in the early 1990s for Fyodor Dostoevsky's Writer's Diary: Volume I, 1873-1876 (translated by Kenneth Lantz) and Ignacy Krasicki's Adventures of Mr. Nicholas Wisdom (translated by Thomas H. Hoisington). In 1997 the Press won a National Book Award for Poetry for William Meredith's Effort at Speech. In 2001, The Jardin des Plantes by Claude Simon, translated by Jordan Stump, was awarded the French-American Foundation Translation Prize. Meena Alexander, author of the poetry book entitled Illiterate Heart (TriQuarterly Books), won the 2002 PEN Open Book Award.

The Press is proud to have published two novels by the winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize for Literature, Hungarian author Imre Kertesz. Fateless (translated by Christopher C. Wilson and Katharina M. Wilson), is a moving novel of the Holocaust and was named one of the Fifty Best Books of 1992 by Publishers Weekly. Kaddish for a Child Not Born (translated by Christopher C. Wilson and Katharina M. Wilson) was published shortly thereafter in 1997.

Several of the Press's titles, including Fording the Stream of Consciousness, Still Waters in Niger, and The Book of Hrabal, have been named Notable Books by the New York Times Book Review.

Since 1992 Northwestern University Press has doubled its publishing output. In addition to the works of contemporary European writers, the Press has also begun to reissue lost or previously untranslated works of important European authors, including Nobel Prize winners Heinrich Böll and Grazia Deledda. Scholarly series include Rethinking Theory, Studies in Russian Literature and Theory, Writings from an Unbound Europe, Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies, and Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy In 1992 the Press joined forces with TriQuarterly magazine--Northwestern University's innovative literary journal aimed at a sophisticated and diverse readership--to establish the TriQuarterly Books imprint, which is devoted primarily to contemporary American fiction and poetry. In addition, the Press has a second trade imprint, Hydra Books, which features contemporary fiction, poetry, and nonfiction in translation. In 1997 TriQuarterly magazine itself became a publication of the Press.

Recently, the Press has begun publishing Chicago regional titles, the first of which--A Court That Shaped America: Chicago's Federal Court from Abe Lincoln to Abbie Hoffman--was published in the fall 2002.