Rose Mary Salum is somewhat dismayed by how little has changed since she founded the Houston-based bilingual press Literal Publishing in 2015. “When I started Literal, there was already an anti-immigrant sentiment,” Salum says. “The perception of those not born in the U.S. is permeated by a lack of openness, and nowadays the theme is highly politicized and very toxic.”
Literal’s origin story begins in 2005, a decade before its official founding, when Salum—an author, translator, and editor who was born in Mexico to Lebanese immigrants and came to the U.S. in 1998—launched a quarterly print magazine of the same name, which publishes essays, fiction, poetry, and criticism. Her goal: “to build a bridge between English and Spanish speakers in the U.S., and to create a space for those of us living in the U.S. whose first language is Spanish,” she says.
When the magazine went digital in 2015, a number of contributors suggested that Salum start publishing books, and that year Literal Publishing was born. “I definitely saw a niche in the market for bilingual editions,” she recalls. “And at the beginning it seemed a little strange to be publishing bilingually, as if the country wasn’t ready for it. But the books began to find readers.”
Today, Literal publishes up to five books per year, and is distributed in the U.S. and Latin America by Ingram. It has a backlist of 37 titles, including three series: Multiverse, a bilingual series of essay collections that explore culture; Lateral, a collection of bilingual poetry and fiction titles; and Dislocados, comprising slim Spanish-language volumes by authors in the U.S., including Cristina Rivera Garza and Yuri Herrera. Through a partnership with Rice University’s Digital Scholarship Archive, Dislocados is available in print and freely downloadable online. “One collection of books led us to another almost immediately,” Salum says, adding that the process of launching the three series was “very organic.”
With the aim of nurturing new writers, Literal has a robust awards program, launched in 2013, as well as a series of creative writing workshops, which have been held since 2016 to help finance Literal’s publishing program. In 2024, the press awarded its inaugural International Prize for books of any genre written in Spanish in the U.S. and Canada. The story collection Lacandona Speed by Claudia Morales, who hails from Chiapas, Mexico, was the inaugural winner, receiving a cash prize and publication by Literal in April of this year. Since 2013, Literal has also given awards for first novels, poetry, and essays, also with cash prizes and publication, in response to what Salum perceived as a lack of prizes for Spanish-language writers in the U.S. “Awarding and recognizing artists that are writing in Spanish within the U.S. and Canada is unprecedented,” she says.
“It has been a titanic labor these past 20 years, but I am optimistic, because there are around 60 million Latinos in the U.S., many of whom are looking to connect with their roots and culture through books,” Salum says. “And we are giving a home to Latino authors living in the U.S., while changing perceptions of Latinos in the country.”
Adam Critchley is a Mexico-based journalist and translator.
