The Juncture Talks to Nuzhat Abbas of trace press

A conversation with founder and director Nuzhat Abbas of trace press.

Jessica Kasiama: Can you tell us about the origin story of trace press?

Nuzhat Abbas: trace emerged from work I’ve done for years – studying, writing, and teaching global and migrant literature and culture, developing community-based art and writing projects, and being involved in various ‘third world’ focused arts, migration and activist initiatives in Canada and the US. Although we launched the press in 2019, we pulled back over the early years of the pandemic and developed two projects, “trace: translating [x]”, starting with Tamil and Arabic poetry translation workshops we ran in 2022-2023 (new books out this Fall), and “Unsettling Translation”, which included a series of conversations and the anthology, River in an Ocean: Essays on Translation (trace, 2023). Both projects evolved from trace’s sustained interest in, and commitment to, questions of (anti) or decolonial, feminist and queer writing and translation. And perhaps it’s useful to remember that stories of ‘origin’ are often partial, incomplete or false narratives…hence the name of our press.

JK: What I love about the ethos of trace press is how grounded and responsive it is to the world around us. In a culture fixated on hyper-productivity, it is a necessary reminder to slow down and look at the work as ever-expanding as opposed to static and unchanging. To allow the work to grow. How has trace evolved since you first began?

NA: Thank you for this beautiful, and very perceptive description of our process (not always clear to us from the inside!) As an outsider to publishing, and to that odd nationalist entity called ‘CanLit,’ I began trace with very limited resources. And trace’s ethos of responsiveness may come from my own complicated history as a migrant (through multiple spaces) and someone constantly questioning what it means to make books in this fraught moment. When I started trace, I was struck by certain capitalist assumptions that dominate contemporary North American publishing, and how these seemed impossible for trace to adhere to. In order to have the courage to build the press, I needed to trust that my critical and creative response to a world that was being shaken up, was shared by others. I’ve devoted much time and energy into building connection and community with writers, poets, translators, readers, academics and activists (and booksellers) who share trace’s concerns. And they too, bring their questions to us, along with their projects. Such conversations, relationships and learnings are deeply important to the work we do at trace. 

JK: I’ve been thinking about this quote from Natalie Diaz: “What is the language that we need to live right now? I mean the language of words, speeches, and text. What should we talk about when so many words exist to destroy us?”¹ For me, something is coming up here about translation as an act of reclamation and how language has been used, and especially used against us. Can you speak to the relationship between translation and healing?

NA: I’ve always admired Natalie Diaz, but even more these days when, unlike so many famous authors, she has taken a clear stand on the ongoing Nakba and the genocide in Gaza. I am haunted by her question – “What should we talk about when so many words exist to destroy us?” I’ve imagined trace as a press that tracks and attends to the pressures and residues of colonialism (but also other power relations) in our countries of origin as well as our spaces of displacement or migration. We publish works that do this in English as well as through bilingual texts, and we prioritize literary translations from various languages of the global South. I’m not romantic about the power of language, much as I mourn our losses and the desire to heal our tongues, and our bodies. Diaz speaks so powerfully about grief as a homeland, about the physicality of language, and about how words in English, and the concepts they carry, are inadequate to what (in the case of Mojave) existed before the Euro-colonial making and taking of ‘America.’

In thinking about language and colonialism in the context of the global South and its diasporas, we also have to contend with issues of power and dominance among our various languages, marked by long, complicated and varied histories of access to writing based on colonialism, nationalism, education, caste, gender, ethnicity and class. Among those who have been marginalized, there has also been song and story and all that is held in oral tradition. I think it’s this attentiveness to the complications of history and language, here and there, that distinguishes our work at trace from that of other, more conventional presses. We’re not interested in promoting ‘diversity’ nor in conventional publishing’s work of ‘extracting and sharing’ – At trace, we would like the texts we publish to support more embodied and particular feeling, more thought, more specific questions, more careful connecting and conversing across language, time, place and history, and practices of reading that are attentive to wounds, grief, resistance, and the complications and possibilities of collective suture.

JK: In an interview with Asymptote Journal, you shared: “Building space for these kinds of ‘after-publication’ conversations is very much part of what I want to create with trace.'' Why is this an important pillar of the press and what community work do you dream of facilitating ahead of your forthcoming releases?

NA: As a reader, educator and community facilitator, I worked for years in the aftermath of a book’s production. The life of books endures long after the frenetic cycle of publishing and distribution and destruction (returns/pulping) forced upon writers and publishers by the wasteful production ecologies enforced by big 5 publishers and corporate distributors. I grew up in spaces (Tanzania and Pakistan) where I did not always have easy access to books, and seem to have retained that sense of early wonder about the printed word. We hope to share this joy and wonder with our audiences and collaborators through our events. At this point, we’re planning two online trace events in Fall to celebrate our collaborative series “trace: translating [x]” with two thought-provoking collections of Arabic and Tamil poetry in translation. (more details soon!)  

JK: In past interviews, you’ve alluded to your experiences working in bookstores during your undergrad. As a bookseller, I often think of the liberatory possibilities in the curatorial, programming, and community-related aspects of the role. I’d love your insights on how bookstores can help aid the work that you are doing as a press, especially as it relates to assisting people in decolonizing their reading lives.

NA: My early suburban bookstore jobs in the 1980s also provided me with lessons in Canadian nationalism with an anti-immigrant, sexist, racist and homophobic slant, also reflected in the more elite education I received at the University of Toronto. I remain forever grateful to Toronto’s amazing histories of radical organizing that introduced me to fabulous bookstores (all gone) like Third World Books, DEC, and the Toronto Women’s Bookstore, and also Pages on Queen Street. This is where I found the books I loved and needed. In the current moment, when I understand independent bookstores depend on sales from Big 5 books to survive the pressures of Amazon and Indigo, I’ve been struck by the enthusiasm, warmth and welcome trace has received from independent booksellers across Canada, especially Another Story and Type in Toronto. This support has been nourishing, and it helps trace (and other small presses) literally survive. I love your idea about the liberatory possibilities of bookstores! How do we move reading towards a collective conversation? And to take it further…how can we work together as independent book publishers, booksellers, readers, academics, teachers, and communities, to challenge and refuse the values and systems set up by a very destructive capitalist ecology of publishing, dominated, rather disturbingly, by former Nazi German-run multinationals (and now a French right-wing enterprise)? The other thing that troubles me is how small presses in Canada (including only 10-15% run by BIPOC publishers) are set up to compete with each other for grants (as are artists and writers) and how that can come in the way of genuine collaborations. I’m still learning how these systems work, and I remain curious. 

I realize this interview might make readers think of trace as a press marked primarily by our politics, I should add the texts we publish are influenced by my own very eclectic tastes as a reader, publisher and editor, and my love of formally inventive, complex writing that pushes the possibilities of language.

River in an Ocean: Essays on Translation is available for purchase online and in-stores. For more information, visit tracepress.org or follow trace on Instagram and Twitter.

1. This quote is from Diaz’s writing in Borders, Human Itineraries, and All Our Relation.