What’s the scoop on publishing? What Jewish books are agents, editors, and publishers especially excited for us to read? JBC’s series BookWatch is here to answer these frequently asked questions. Each month, a publishing insider writes an email to introduce themselves, give us a behind-the-scenes look at their work, and tell us about forthcoming Jewish books they can’t wait to usher into the world.
This piece originally appeared in a JBC email on Friday, January 31. Sign up here for our emails to be one of the first to know the latest Jewish literary news!
Hello, lovely BookWatch readers! I’m Alessandra Anzani, Editorial Director at Academic Studies Press (ASP) — an independent scholarly publisher with a focus on Jewish and Slavic studies.
I have always been fascinated by the publishing world, that crucial connection between an author’s creation and the minds and hearts of their readers. But it was by accident that I started working in academic publishing in particular, as an internship became available at the Peter Lang Oxford office next door to the Oxfam Bookshop where I volunteered. All these years later, I feel so privileged to have built a career in this field, and especially for the opportunity to lead the acquisitions and editorial departments at ASP. As a small (but mighty) independent press, we make the most of our nimbleness to adapt to new developments in order to keep offering the same excellent content to our readers around the world.
We have many exciting new books in our Jewish studies catalog, which makes it very hard to choose recommendations! As well as our solid scholarly list, in the past few years we’ve been expanding our trade offer of both literary fiction (particularly in translation) and nonfiction, through our imprint Cherry Orchard Books.
We are delighted to have just published chef and historian Hélène Jawhara Piñer’s second historical cookbook, Matzah and Flour: Recipes from the History of the Sephardic Jews. The book, following on from Hélène’s wonderful Sephardi: Cooking the History, explores the rich tradition of Sephardic cuisine through recipes and stories that showcase the cultural significance and symbolism of these ingredients.
We are also particularly excited about the new seriesImmigrant Worlds and Texts, edited by Maxim Shrayer — we have several excellent volumes in the pipeline — and Mikhail Goldis’s fresh-off-the-press Memoirs of a Jewish District Attorney from Soviet Ukraine, translated and edited by Marat Grinberg. The book offers a fascinating glimpse into the life of a Jewish district attorney in post-Stalinist Soviet Ukraine, and explores the role of antisemitism and Holocaust memories in the lives of Jews and Ukrainians under Soviet rule.
And we are about to release the second volume of The Shochet, edited by Michoel Rotenfeld and co-published with Touro University Press, the wonderfully interesting autobiography of Pinkhes-Dov Goldenshteyn, a shochet (kosher slaughterer) who lived in Tsarist Russia and Israel during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Enriched by extensive archival research and interviews, the book is a precious contribution to Jewish and Eastern European history. It offers us an account of family relationships, persecution, community, religious practices, and social and political issues — precious insights into the struggles of a minority group in the Russian Empire and later in Israel.
Finally, I would like to mention a newly published analysis of Zionism as both a political and cultural movement: Zionism and Jewish Culture by Yitzhak Conforti (translated by Jessica Setbon). The book delves into the relationship between Israel and Jewish tradition, the balance between the Jewish people’s welfare and the Land of Israel, and the role of Western versus Eastern principles in shaping the state. This volume will make an invaluable read for anyone looking to gain a deeper understanding of the forces that continue to influence Zionism and Israel today.
Thank you for spending a few minutes with me, and happy reading!
Alessandra Anzani is the editorial director at Academic Studies Press, publisher of award-winning scholarly and trade titles in the humanities and social sciences. She manages the acquisitions and editorial teams, as well as the trade imprint Cherry Orchard Books, and serves on the editorial board of the London Ukrainian Review. She previously worked for Peter Lang as an acquisitions editor in the UK, US, and Latin American markets. She studied classics, literature, and philology at Università di Salerno, Italy and international relations at UCL, London. She lived in Italy, Germany, and the US before settling in Oxford, UK.
