Formed in 2020, the International Union of Left Publishers emerged as a platform of left publishers to promote left books through Red Books Day (21 February), to defend left authors, publishers, and bookshops, and to develop a copyleft method of sharing books across our countries and languages.
This booklet provides an overview of the history and objectives of the IULP.
Current Programmes
Over forty publishers are currently members the IULP. The Union is organized in four regional secretariats: the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Europe. The Zetkin Forum is the convenor of the IULP in Europe. The global work we have done together includes:
1. Red Books Day
Every year on 21 February, we ask writers, editors, publishers, booksellers, and readers to go out into public places – including bookshops – and to read, and bring alive, any red book. This event, Red Books Day, takes place on the date The Communist Manifesto was published in 1848.
During the first year, in 2020, more than thirty thousand people from South Korea to Venezuela joined the public reading of the Manifesto in their own languages. This booklet captures the day in words and images.
2. Joint books
As part of our experience in building the IULP, we produce books together, from selecting the content to carrying out production process with the respective committees. We began modestly – with three publishers – and have grown to approximately thirty publishers participating in producing the same red book to be published on the same day in our various languages:
- Lenin 150 (April 2020)
- Mariátegui (June 2020)
- Che (October 2020)
- Paris Commune 150 (May 2021)
- Kollontai 150 (April 2022)
- Ruth First (May 2023)
- Salvador Allende (September 2023)
3. Solidarity Rights
The IULP is developing a new formula for sharing rights to our books and building a procedure in which some of them can be shared with our entire IULP membership in a solidarity fashion. More details about these rights will be shared soon.
Thus far, we have produced several books, such as Washington Bullets, which was translated from English into Spanish by Batalla de Ideas (Argentina) and then offered, gratis, to other Spanish-language publishers outside of Argentina to print and sell.
The IULP in Europe
The European region of the IULP consists of the following publishers:
- EPO, Belgium
- Radical Books, Catalonia
- Tigre de Papel, Catalonia
- Mangroven Verlag, Germany
- Zetkin Forum, Germany
- frACTalia, Romania
- IDEAS, Romania
- Connolly Books, Ireland
- Red Star Press, Italy
- Založba /*cf, Slovenia
- Bellaterra Ediciones, Spain
The IULP in Europe also runs a collective mailing list through which subscribers can receive and send information on new publications, translation rights, funding possibilities, and solidarity campaigns. A monthly update on IULP global activities is also sent out via the mailing list. To subscribe, send an email to this address: leftpublisherseurope-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
If you would like to join the IULP, write to us at contact@zetkin.forum