Tynan Kogane
Senior editor
New Directions Publishing
When it comes to making a mark as an editor, few independent publishers have a higher standard to meet than small-but-mighty New Directions Publishing. Senior editor Tynan Kogane certainly meets the standard. Among Kogane’s acquisitions are books by Prix Goncourt laureate Mathias Énard, Akutagawa Prize winner Hiroko Oyamada, and International Booker Prize shortlistees Fernanda Melchor and Olga Ravn. He’s also edited anthologies of poetry for the publisher, including a collection of French surrealist poetry and another of the love poems of Catullus.
“Tynan has a far-reaching view of literature,” says Kogane’s colleague at NDP, foreign rights director Declan Spring, who nominated him for the award. “With great energy and charisma and the astounding breadth and scope of his reading, he has built up a remarkable network of contacts in the international publishing world and brought in an astounding list of renowned writers from around the world to New Directions.”
During his more than eight years with the press, Kogane has made a career of literary stone-turning, and the list of authors and translators he’s discovered (or rediscovered), both contemporary and historically overlooked, has helped keep NDP a consistent a presence in major awards shortlists (and English Literature departments) nationwide.
Kogane say working at NDP is in many ways his dream job. “I was an intern at New Directions the summer after graduating from the New School about 12 years ago, and I quickly fell in love with everything about the place: the editorial work; the wise, kind, and intelligent staff; and the values of the press,” Kogane shares. “I get to acquire and work on books that I genuinely love. And what a thrill to go searching for those elusive and singular books, the books that pull me to the edge of my seat, the books whose authors invent or reinvent different literary forms and styles to tell their stories.”
