About the Obolus Press and the Blog
I ferry dead authors and artists into English and back into print
An obolus is a little silver coin. In ancient Greece it was commonly placed under the tongues of the dead so that they could pay Charon to be ferried across the river Styx to the underworld. The word is still used in French (verser son obole) and in German (seinen Obolus entrichten): if you pay an obolus you are making a modest contribution towards something. I hope to render a small service to literature by bringing the works of defunct French and German authors to English readers.
My name is Andrew Rickard. I am a translator and used to be an in-house book editor. I started the Obolus Press to share the works of lesser-known European artists and authors, and it is going well; my translation of Hans Ostwald’s history of the Weimar hyperinflation was favourably reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement, and I’ve been profiled in the New Criterion.
Mainstream publishers are not interested in the books you’ll find here because they are unfashionable and unprofitable. Monographs about neglected European painters and obscure memoirs from the 19th and early 20th centuries are unlikely to even qualify for, never mind win, the government grants that fund so many literary projects today. The Obolus Press, however, was founded on a different model.
I use this blog (hosted on Substack) to post excerpts from my translations and the occasional article. In this quiet grove you will hear no mention of current events or politics. If you crave that sort of thing, you are well served elsewhere.
Everything is free; there is no paid subscription tier at the moment.
You can learn more about me here, read about the origin of the press here, and find contact details here.
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