Celebrating 20 years of publishing books on Latin America
2009-05-01 | 2009 marks Ocean’s 20th anniversary and two decades of publishing books on and from Latin America.
As a new era dawns in Latin America, with new progressive governments in several countries, including Venezuela, Bolivia, and El Salvador, it seems a good moment to reflect on what Ocean Press and our Spanish-language publishing project Ocean Sur have achieved.
Ocean Press emerged out of the solidarity movements of the 1980s, focusing on the struggles in southern Africa and Central America, as well as the ongoing revolutionary process in Cuba. But the early 1990s generally brought setbacks, retreats and defeats, despite the historic significance of the peace accords in El Salvador and the overturn of apartheid in South Africa.
Solidarity with Cuba became a priority as the island was brought to the brink of economic disaster following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ocean Press established an office in Cuba and achieved great success in distributing our books to the growing tourist market there.
The original impetus to publishing books in Spanish arose from our commitment to the Che Guevara Publishing Project, initiated with the Che Guevara Studies Center in Havana, headed by Che’s compañera Aleida March. We soon discovered that Che’s writings were not only long out of print in English, but surprisingly were virtually impossible to find in Latin America in Spanish. We felt obligated to correct this situation.
From resistance to colonial exploitation to the struggle against neoliberalism, Latin America has always led the defense of national sovereignty and independence. The renewed optimism today among Latin American nations in pursuit of progressive social, political, and economic development and sovereignty was the other factor that led Ocean Press to launch our Spanish-language publishing project for Latin America, Ocean Sur.
The success of Ocean Press provided the financial basis on which we were able to launch Ocean Sur in 2006. Within just three short years, we have achieved distribution throughout the entire continent and have a list of more than 150 books and pamphlets in Spanish.
As an independent publisher with a unique list of books offering a radical global vision of politics and history, in English and Spanish, Ocean plans to continue to publish books designed to capture the imagination of those who believe that a world of peace and justice is possible and to provide resources to those who are actively working toward creating such a world.
Ocean Press emerged out of the solidarity movements of the 1980s, focusing on the struggles in southern Africa and Central America, as well as the ongoing revolutionary process in Cuba. But the early 1990s generally brought setbacks, retreats and defeats, despite the historic significance of the peace accords in El Salvador and the overturn of apartheid in South Africa.
Solidarity with Cuba became a priority as the island was brought to the brink of economic disaster following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ocean Press established an office in Cuba and achieved great success in distributing our books to the growing tourist market there.
The original impetus to publishing books in Spanish arose from our commitment to the Che Guevara Publishing Project, initiated with the Che Guevara Studies Center in Havana, headed by Che’s compañera Aleida March. We soon discovered that Che’s writings were not only long out of print in English, but surprisingly were virtually impossible to find in Latin America in Spanish. We felt obligated to correct this situation.
From resistance to colonial exploitation to the struggle against neoliberalism, Latin America has always led the defense of national sovereignty and independence. The renewed optimism today among Latin American nations in pursuit of progressive social, political, and economic development and sovereignty was the other factor that led Ocean Press to launch our Spanish-language publishing project for Latin America, Ocean Sur.
The success of Ocean Press provided the financial basis on which we were able to launch Ocean Sur in 2006. Within just three short years, we have achieved distribution throughout the entire continent and have a list of more than 150 books and pamphlets in Spanish.
As an independent publisher with a unique list of books offering a radical global vision of politics and history, in English and Spanish, Ocean plans to continue to publish books designed to capture the imagination of those who believe that a world of peace and justice is possible and to provide resources to those who are actively working toward creating such a world.