Simi Press

05/12/2022

The story of writing Roadside Picnic (in contrast to the story of publishing it) doesn’t include anything amusing or even instructive. The novel was conceived in February 1970, when my brother and I got together in Komarovo, a Russian town on the Gulf of Finland, to write The Doomed City.
https://simipress.com/on-censorship-in-the-soviet-union/

The story of writing Roadside Picnic (in contrast to the story of publishing it) doesn’t include anything amusing or even instructive. The novel was conceived in February 1970, when my brother and I got together in Komarovo, a Russian town on the Gulf of Finland, to write The Doomed City.

02/10/2022

𝙏𝙧𝙤𝙥𝙞𝙘 𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙝 𝙗𝙮 𝙀𝙧𝙞𝙘 𝙒𝙖𝙡𝙧𝙤𝙣𝙙 𝙞𝙨 𝙣𝙤𝙬 𝙖𝙫𝙖𝙞𝙡𝙖𝙗𝙡𝙚 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙎𝙞𝙢𝙞 𝙋𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙨.

The horse came to a dead, rigid stop. It was death dark and they had just entered the heart of the marl gully.

He was already fidgety and grew urgent. “Come on, Rayside,” he shouted, “giddup.” But the mare shook, stamped, shuddered.

He stroked her mane, but a strange strong-headedness took hold of her. She flung her ears forward.

Bellon dismounted, and the mare’s inelegant tail switched her bony flanks. He coaxed and patted her, but all she did was jerk her head the more.

Resorting to a flashlight, Bellon clicked it at her feet.

As the glare hit the marl, he recoiled, as one struck, at the spectacle it revealed—a little Negro baby sleeping in the marl!

“God, what’s next!”

The Panama Canal, vampire bats, colonialism, voodoo, Barbados, poverty and opulence, man-eating snakes, racism, and a picture of life in the Caribbean at the turn of the century.

25/09/2021

Tomasa y las mujeres de su ejército “estaban iluminadas por el deseo irrefrenable de libertad”. No sentían miedo y ya habían demostrado su valentía en el campo de batalla. Todas marcharon estratégicamente hacia el puente de Pillpinto con la intención de frenar el avance español. Escogió ese sitio ya que la geografía le permitía tener la ventaja. No tuvieron que esperar mucho para ver asomarse del otro lado del río al contingente realista. Tito Condemayta las apaciguó hasta que la tropa enemiga empezó a cruzar el puente. Saltaron entonces al ataque, con furia y de frente sin argucias militares, usando sólo piedras y huaracas. En respuesta los españoles descargaron sus armas de fuego contra ellas, pero ninguna retrocedió; todo lo contrario, aceleraron y arremetieron. Después de varias horas de lucha, y ante el arrojo y rudeza de las mujeres, los españoles huyeron desordenadamente. Las autoridades españolas catalogaron su derrota como una obra de brujería. No podían concebir que un ejército de mujeres haya podido derrotar a su batallón.

Tomasa Tito Condemayta encontró su fin el 18 de mayo de 1781 en la plaza de armas de Cusco junto a Micaela Bastidas y Túpac Amaru II. Fue torturada, ahorcada y desmembrada.

https://clio.pe/blog-1/f/tomasa-tito-condemayta

06/06/2021

"The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born" by Ayi Kwei Armah.

A lot of people see this book as just a criticism of corruption and the post-colonial government in Ghana in the 60s and 70s. But it's really a lot more than that: about life, power and human weakness, ideals, materialism, what could be and what isn't. The main character refuses to compromise, and lives what he believes in. It starts out slow but it's really a beautiful story.

The Beautiful One (Wn Nefer in ancient Eqyptian) was the spirit of social change, guardian to devotees of progressive transformations.

https://simipress.com/books/library/

21/05/2021

The Kindle version is now available:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B094QH58NH

23/04/2021

A short, but sincere review of "207th Bone" on New Pages Blog by M. A. Dubbs.

Guest Post by M. A. Dubbs. As I’ve turned more to e-books and my Kindle through this COVID-19 winter, I have fallen in love with some beautiful indie poetry. 207th Bone is one of these books and showcases translated prose from China. Written by Zhou Li, a Chinese doctor and caretaker of one hundre...

05/02/2021

Too Bright to See is a book that plays with form as much as language. The poems are a mixture of wit, nostalgia, high school English class, and good literature. There are love poems and there are poems about everyday life in San Francisco, the city where David Booth lives
https://simipress.com/too-bright-to-see/

Too Bright to See is a book that plays with form as much as language. The poems are a mixture of wit, nostalgia, high school English class, and good literature. There are love poems and there are poems about everyday life in San Francisco, the city where David Booth lives

01/02/2021

"Too Bright to See," poems by David Booth, is now available with Simi Press.

Shelter-in-place friends, lovers, caretakers, Puck, sixth graders, grandmothers, Harry Hay, a sacred pedestrian, and Gilda Radner...

Buy on Amazon:
https://mybook.to/too_bright_to_see

15/01/2021

"The Futurological Congress" by Polish writer Stanisław Lem. The adventures of Ijon Tichy, as he visits the Eighth World Futurological Congress at a Hilton Hotel in Costa Rica. A black comedy on the future of the human race, overpopulation, and happiness.
https://simipress.com/books/library/

26/12/2020

Every week Simi Press adds another book to the library to read online or download in the format of your choice. This week: "The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years" by Kyrgyz writer Chinghiz Aitmatov.

Folk stories and the modern world, a soviet rail worker and intergalactic space travel, about human potential and stupidity:
https://simipress.com/books/library/

19/12/2020

Coffin has translated books from numerous languages and has a plethora of her own books that were never bestsellers. "The Aftermath" is about PTSD and trauma from first hand experience--she worked as a psychoanalyst for years. Published by Adelaide Books.

MK92E as the discount code and get a free copy

“Coffin brings to the page a very real conflict faced by many people. She shows how the struggle to survive, to heal, exacts itself morally and physically on a person. Her resolution brings a contemporary edge to the narrative. The action resolves in a surprising and yet perhaps inevitable outcome...

18/12/2020

"Haiti" by Kurtis Sunday

A Florentine nun leads a mission to Haiti, Spain's first American colony, during the the horrors of the Spanish Conquest of the Americas, the destruction of its original peoples, the commencement of the Atlantic slave trade and the beginnings of globalization.

Read online or download in the format of your choice.
https://simipress.com/books/library/

17/12/2020

"Ubik" is one of those books that is universal: it has gotten translated over and over again in different languages. Each translation is really a different story.

https://www.thedirt.media/blog/2020/4/24/11-of-the-coolest-foreign-language-ubik-covers

13/12/2020

Every week Simi Press adds another book to the library to read online or download in the format of your choice. This week: "Ubik" by Philip Dick. The science fiction version of the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
https://simipress.com/books/library/

09/12/2020

Diseño y diagramación de libros (electrónicos e impresos) y traducciones literarias y técnicas de español a inglés. Contamos con un equipo profesional a precios cómodos. Cotización y muestra sin costo.

Contacto: [email protected]
https://simipress.com/books/

03/12/2020

"Revolt of the Cockroach People" by Oscar Zeta Acosta.

The fictionalized version of an extraordinary life: Buffalo Brown and the movement in Los Angeles in the 60s and 70s.

Read online or download in the format of your choice:
https://simipress.com/books/library/

02/12/2020

Simi Press offers cover design services and interior layout for print and ebooks.

We offer cover design, a free ISBN, permanent worldwide distribution, interior layout, display on our website, and two free author copies for USD $150.

Partial services are available at discounted rates. Please contact us for more information. Sample layouts of your book are available free of charge as part of the quote.

Please see previous publications here:
https://simipress.com/books/titles/

Books published by Simi Press and offered for sale: Poetry, fiction, translations, and bilingual books.

27/11/2020

Chomsky and Orwell on "We" by Yevgeny Zamyatin. The book was possibly the first dystopian novel, long before "1984" or "Brave New World." Before the hundreds of movies, beaten only by Plato's "Republic."

Read online, or download in the format of your choice:
https://simipress/books/library/

We know George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, at least by reputation, and we’ve heard both references tossed around with alarming frequency this past year.

21/11/2020

Redoble por Rancas de Manuel Scorza trata sobre la matanza en la comunidad de Rancas el 2 Mayo, 1960 cuando los policías, bajo orden de la Cerro de Pasco Corporation, de los EEUU, trató de botar a los campesinos de Rancas de su tierras. Cuando no querían irse, los policías respondieron con sus armas - mataron a varios y muchos estaban heridos.

Lee aquí: https://simipress.com/books/library/

30/10/2020

this is my piano.

the phone rings and people ask,
what are you doing? how about
getting drunk with us?

and I say,
I’m at my piano.

what?

I’m at my piano.

I hang up.

people need me. I fill
them. if they can’t see me
for a while they get desperate, they get
sick.

but if I see them too often
I get sick. it’s hard to feed
without getting fed.

my piano says things back to
me.

sometimes the things are
scrambled and not very good.
other times
I get as good and lucky as
Chopin.

sometimes I get out of practice
out of tune. that’s
all right.

I can sit down and vomit on the
keys
but it’s my
vomit.

it’s better than sitting in a room
with 3 or 4 people and
their pianos.

this is my piano
and it is better than theirs.

and they like it and they do not like it.

"Love is a Dog from Hell" is available to read:
http://simipress.com/bibi/?book=love_is_a_dog_from_hell.epub

Or to download in the format of your choice on Simi Press:
https://simipress.com/books/

29/10/2020

This story is the earliest recorded tale featuring a Chinese woman bandit ringleader. It is an example of the chuanqi genre, a short narrative form written in Classical Chinese that often explores topics such as vigilante heroes, adventure, supernatural beings, and strange happenings. The chuanqi genre has been extremely influential on modern Chinese fiction, especially in martial arts, with well-known examples such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

https://simipress.com/the-woman-in-the-carriage/

During the Kaiyuan era of the Tang dynasty, a young man from the county of Wu traveled to Chang’an city …

27/10/2020

There were two hundred twenty-seven trains running the subways every weekday, and they carried about a million and a half passengers. The Cambridge-Dorchester train that disappeared on March 4th was Number 86. Nobody missed it at first. During the evening rush, the traffic was a little heavier than usual on that line. But a crowd is a crowd. The ad posters at the Forest Hills yards looked for 86 about 7:30, but neither of them mentioned its absence until three days later. The controller at the Milk Street Cross-Over called the Harvard checker for an extra train after the hockey game that night, and the Harvard checker relayed the call to the yards. The dispatcher there sent out 87, which had been put to bed at ten o’clock, as usual. He didn’t notice that 86 was missing.

"A Subway Named Mobius", science fiction by astonomer and writer Armin Joseph Deutsch.

In a complex and ingenious pattern, the subway had spread out from a focus at Park Street. A shunt connected the Lechmere line with the Ashmont for trains southbound, and with the Forest Hills line…

26/10/2020

A lot of rain in the south of the
Yangtze River in winter
Heavy rain, medium rain
Small rain
Continuously raining
Every drop falls on the ground
The world does not need too many sceneries
As long as there is rain
If there is also, you,
Would be perfect

--Zhou Li

https://mybook.to/206th_bone_kindle

23/10/2020

"Cadillac Desert:The American West and its Disappearing Water" by Marc Reisner. It was ten years of research to write this book, and as relevant as ever in the dusty West. "Chinatown", directed by Roman Polanski and starring Jack Nicholson, wasn't fiction: water is a disappearing resource.

Read online or download in the format of your choice:
https://simipress.com/books/

22/10/2020

𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐭, 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐝𝐚𝐲...

Poems about life in the city in modern China: the book is about finding meaning among millions of people and finding love in loneliness. It's a glimpse into moments of life, of nature in the city, about death, dreams and existence. Zhou Li is a doctor as well as a poet, and the poems in his debut collection of poetry are short and simple, but profound.

"207th Bone" is now available on Kindle.

https://mybook.to/206th_bone_kindle

21/10/2020

Xi Nan´s most recent project is 207th Bone, a translation of poetry by Zhou Li which is coming out October 22nd with Simi Press. I had the opportunity to speak with her about the project, Chinese poetry, and the art of translation.
https://simipress.com/207th-bone-interview-with-xi-nan/

Xi Nan´s most recent project is 207th Bone, a translation of poetry by Zhou Li which is coming out October 22nd with Simi Press. I had the opportunity to speak with her about the project, Chinese poetry, and the art of translation.

21/10/2020

De repente Wislawa Szymborska no hubiera ganado el premio Nobel si no hubiera vuelto disidente del partido comunista. Pero sus sí son buenos, y los de su juventud tiene un vitalidad y vida que no existió en sus poemas después, con un premio que merecía pero la fama que no quería.

“Ustedes son más torpes que sus poemas.
Tú te olvidarás de ti misma al levantar el vuelo”

'Canción negra', recién publicado en castellano, recoge los poemas perdidos y más revolucionarios de la Nobel cuando sólo tenía veinte años y aún no se había desencantado de la revolución. 

18/10/2020

Aunque es conocido por escribir libros para niños, Francisco Izquierdo Ríos también escribió cuentos con temas para adultos, sobre violencia, literatura, s**o y pobreza. Pero más que todo escribía sobre la selva amazónica de Perú, el lugar donde nació y vivió por muchos años.

Cuentos selectos (PDF):
https://simipress.com/bibi-bookshelf/cuentos_selectos_francisco_izquierdo_rios.pdf

Descargar (mobi, epub):
https://simipress.com/books/

14/10/2020

The Kindle version of "207th Bone," poems by Zhou Li and translated by Xi Nan, will be available on October 22nd.

The book tells the story of life in the city in modern China, about nature, sometimes very explicit and sexual, sometimes everyday - about love and death. It is about finding meaning among millions of people and finding love in loneliness. Zhou Li is a doctor as well as a poet, and the poems are short and simple, but have a lot to say.

Pre-orders are now available:

207th Bone

10/10/2020

Simi Press tiene una biblioteca de libros electrónicos en inglés y español. Se puede leer en línea o descargar el formato que elija. Todos los viernes agregamos otro libro. Esta semana ofrecemos "El sueño del celta" de Mario Vargas Llosa.
https://simipress.com/bibi-bookshelf/el_sueno_del_celta.pdf

The Dream of the Celt, by Vargas Llosa, is available to read or download in English and Spanish on Simi Press. About Robert Casement, who was instrumental in exposing the exploitation of Natives in the Peruvian Amazon during the rubber boom.
https://simipress.com/books/

02/10/2020

Every week Simi Press adds another book to the library to read online or download in the format of your choice. This week: "The Last Man" by Mary Shelley. About a deadly virus that takes over the world and kills everybody. Sound familiar?
https://simipress.com/books/

25/09/2020

Simi Press tiene una biblioteca de libros electrónicos en inglés y español. Se puede leer en línea o descargar el formato que elija. Todos los viernes agregamos otro libro. Esta semana ofrecemos "Sangama" de Arturo D. Hernández, escritor iqueño.

https://simipress.com/books/

24/09/2020

This month we'll be publishing writers and artists from the Amazon. The jungle is like the Alaska of Peru. It covers 60% of the country and is the least populated. It's also the region where the most languages are spoken. Rich in oral and written stories, a lot of good writers have come from the region: Arturo Hernández, Cesar Calvo, Juan Rodríguez Pérez, Róger Rumrrill, Miguelina Acosta Cárdenas, and Francisco Izquierdo, among others. From chica to the psychedelic sounds and colors of it's music and art, while critics focus on the capital, cities and communities from the jungle have been influencing the coast for decades.

21/09/2020

La primera vez que leí Sangama, la gran novela de aventuras en la selva de Arturo D. Hernández, quedé perturbado para siempre ...
https://simipress.com/sangama/

La primera vez que leí Sangama, la gran novela de aventuras en la selva de Arturo D. Hernández, quedé perturbado para siempre ...

11/09/2020

Simi Press tiene una biblioteca de libros electrónicos en inglés y español. Se puede leer en línea o descargar el formato que elija. Apoye a los escritores si puede pero la idea es que hay una biblioteca de libros gratis para una comunidad de lectores que puede usarlos.

Todos los viernes agregamos otro libro. Esta semana ofrecemos "¡Que viva la música!" de Andrés Caicedo.

https://bit.ly/3hhNyqR

09/09/2020

Andrés Caicedo lived in Cali, Colombia during the '60s and '70s. He only finished one novel, ¡Qué viva la música!, and killed himself just as the book was coming out, when he was twenty-five. It's not a sad story. Caicedo is one of those rare cases of someone who lived
https://simipress.com/que-viva-la-musica/

Andrés Caicedo lived in Cali, Colombia during the '60s and '70s. He only finished one novel, ¡Qué viva la música!, and killed himself just as the book was coming out, when he was twenty-five. It's not a sad story. Caicedo is one of those rare cases of someone who lived

28/08/2020

Every week Simi Press adds another book to the library to read online or download in the format of your choice. This week: "Red Line" by Charles Bowden. Set in the borderlands between the US and Mexico.

https://simipress.com/books/

25/08/2020

The hands of all the four thousand electric clocks in all the Bloomsbury Centre's four thousand rooms marked twenty-seven minutes past two. "This hive of industry," as the Director was fond of calling it, was in the full buzz of work. Everyone was busy, everything in ordered motion. Under the
https://simipress.com/spermatozoa/

The hands of all the four thousand electric clocks in all the Bloomsbury Centre's four thousand rooms marked twenty-seven minutes past two.