Northwestern University Press has just acquired Curbstone Press. The 34-year-old small Connecticut-based press will continue as a university imprint starting January 1, 2010. Northwestern will publish new titles under the Curbstone imprint, in addition to keeping the 150-title backlist in print.

One of the nearly ten titles that are already far enough along “in the pipeline” to be published as part of the new imprint, is a children’s book by Edwidge Danticat, the Haitian-American writer and MacArthur “Genius Award” winner. Danticat’s A Little Bedtime Story for Saya will be illustrated by Leslie Staub and edited by Elizabeth Van Doren.

Assistant director and senior editor Henry Carrigan at Northwestern explains that “with its emphasis on creative literature that promotes human rights and intercultural understanding, the acquisition of Curbstone fits perfectly into our publishing program,” adding that the new imprint further solidifies their traditional strengths in literature in translation and literature from underrepresented communities.

For the Curbstone board, the purchase means that Taylor and Doyle’s vision will be preserved. Curbstone’s booklist includes work by Luis Rodríguez, Martín Espada, Claribel Alegría, Salah Al Hamdani, Ana Castillo, Wayne Karlin, E. Ethelbert Miller, and Sergio Ramírez as well as Nobel laureate, Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, whose novel Wandering Star was reissued in September with a foreword by Adam Gopnik.

For full articles, see http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2009/12/curbstone.html and http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6711061.html?rssid=192

For more information and a complete list of Northwestern University Press titles, visit http://nupress.northwestern.edu/

Photo of Danticat and daughter from http://www.oprah.com/article/omagazine/200902_omag_chance_danticat