Publisher of Yiddish literature since 2010
Olniansky Tekst Farlag was founded in 2010 with the mission to create modern literature in Yiddish and thus contributing to keeping the language alive outside of the Hassidic world. Our first publication was the culture magazine “Dos Bletele”. The language wasn’t always top notch and the subjects didn’t always appeal to the average Yiddih reader, but it was always a beautiful publication and it was the start of something awesome and important.
Our first book “Bahelterlekh mit Alef un Beys” saw the light of day in 2016. It was a bilingual book in Swedish and Yiddish and didn’t make much noise internationally. The breakthrough came in December 2017 with the release of “Der krolik der kosmonoyt”, “Di anatomye mit Alef un Beys” and “Di frukhtn”. The books were all in Yiddish and both Krolik and Anatomye sold out within a year.
One of our most important publications came the year after. We had gotten a bad review in the Yiddish Forward after publishing “Di anatomye mit Alef un Beys” and “Der krolik der kosmonoyt”, and we wrote a response, explaining the importance of these publications and our philosophy as a publishing house. That’s when we got in touch with the world renowned Yiddishist Kobi Weitzner z”l, and we are eternally grateful to him for wanting us to publish his book “Der gliklekher mentsh”, a beautiful story about the quest for love and happiness.
Translator Barry Goldstein helped us reach the next level with the publication of his translation of legendary J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit”, and in 2020 we had our 15 minutes of fame with the publication of Arun Viswanath’s translation of J.K. Rowlin’s “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”. Suddenly our small publishing house was mentioned on TV stations all over the world. Now we hope this attention will last and that more people will see the magic within Yiddish even outside the world of Hogwarts.
