Italian Publishers abroad.
Interview with Lorenzo Rocca, Head of rights and foreign coordination of the publishing house Mimesis Edizioni

For some years now, the publishing house Mimesis Edizioni has been publishing titles in French, English and German through the creation abroad of subsidiaries, respectively ‘Éditions Mimesis’, ‘Mimesis International’ and ‘Mimesis Verlag’. Why this choice and what are their objectives?

The first experiment started as far back as 1999, with a small production of French-language titles for universities, which over the years became a full-fledged publishing programme in co-edition with Vrin. In 2014, Éditions Mimésis became, to all intents and purposes, autonomous, in terms of promotion and distribution, and began its journey as the French imprint of the Mimesis group. Today, it publishes 45 new titles a year, favouring French authors and bringing some titles from our Italian catalogue into translation.

On the basis of these experiences, Mimesis International, the publishing brand for the English-speaking world, was launched in 2013, followed by the small German imprint Mimesis Verlag.

This drive towards internationalisation has cultural reasons: we are a publisher dedicated to non-fiction and the humanities, specialising in philosophy, and for us, tracing sources in their language of origin, as well as a general interest in foreign publishing production, represent the starting point of our work. This cosmopolitan perspective has sustained our desire to grow over the years: in Italy, by enriching our catalogue with important translations – Edgar Morin, Alain Badiou, Slavoj Zizek, Judith Butler, Roland Barthes, to name but a few – and abroad, by directly strengthening our presence on the publishing market.

What first, provisional, assessment do you think you can make, some 10 years after the distribution of the ‘Éditions Mimesis’, ‘Mimesis International’ and ‘Mimesis Verlag’ imprints?

Very positive. It has helped us weave important relationships with foreign authors and research centres, developing a wider network of series editors, editorial editors and translators. It has also allowed us to touch the publishing systems of other countries: from France – in many respects close to us, and not only geographically – where readers are curious, passionate and with a cult of good books, in terms of content and workmanship; to the more distant and complex reality of the crowded English-speaking market, where the large publishing and distribution groups control large slices of it.

What space is dedicated in Mimesis’ international catalogues to titles by Italian authors?

At Éditions Mimésis we try to maintain a balance: we do not want to be mere ‘importers’ of Italian titles. Although the market is curious about Italian authors – there has always been a deep bond between Italy and France from a cultural point of view – readers are less foreignophile, we must in a certain sense ‘invite them to read’, build their loyalty. And so while we publish the latest essay by Jean-Loup Amselle, a master of contemporary French anthropology, L’Occident connaît la musique. Musiques du monde et ethnomusicologie, in parallel we propose in translation two essays by the great sociologist Franco Ferrarotti – Science et conscience and La sociologie, vision d’ensemble – who recently passed away and to whom our affectionate, grateful remembrance goes.

Similarly, in the philosophical sphere, while we publish the latest effort by Françoise Dastur, Philosophy Prize 2023 of the French Academy, Pour une pensée sans frontières. Entre Orient et Occident, and on the other we had the pleasure of bringing Luciano Floridi to France, translating his L’Etica dell’intelligenza artificiale.

With Mimesis International, which is characterised by a more distinctly academic production, we give a lot of space to Italian researchers and authors, with a view to the internationalisation of Italian research, which, thanks to the English language, makes its contents consultable by a much wider audience. The example that perhaps best embodies this spirit is the philosophical journal Chiasmi, now in its 25th issue, and which since its foundation has published every article, in the printed edition as well as the digital equivalent, in three languages: English, French and Italian.

What projects do you envisage, in the short or long term, to consolidate this projection towards the international?

We are moving in different directions, also following the characteristics of the different national markets. In France, where the bookstore chains do not have the weight they have in Italy, and where instead the galaxy of independent bookshops is solid and represents the heart of the sales network, we are moving precisely to strengthen our direct relationship with booksellers and, at the same time, to be more present in the press, so as to increase the circulation of new titles and new authors.

In the face of growing interest in our catalogue, we are above all developing more agile, popular and, if possible, small-format new titles – genuinely ‘paperback’ books. Examples of this are the recent L’éthique de l’intelligence artificielle expliquée à mon fils by E. Panaï – a true pamphlet that introduces the debate on AI without asking the reader for any previous knowledge on the subject – or the photographic story Sous les remparts de Jérusalem by Tano D’amico, (alas) very topical and truly touching.

In the UK and the US, on the other hand, academic non-fiction is increasingly moving on a double track: open access on the one hand and print-on-demand on the other. These are two paths that we are strengthening and that often intertwine – because, ultimately, there is always the desire to have the paper book in our hands. And while they have undoubtedly helped speed up the internationalisation of research, they also open up new challenges for the distribution and economic sustainability of the ‘publishing machine’.

Lorenzo Rocca

I graduated in Philosophical Sciences in 2016. With a phenomenological background (in particular Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger and Eugen Fink), after university I dedicated myself to delving into psychoanalysis, in particular child psychoanalysis (from Melanie Klein to Esther Bick, via Wilfred Bion). For Mimesis Edizioni, I am responsible for the rights office and editorial coordination of foreign brands – with a focus on the more psychological titles in our Italian production.