Why we exist

Consider this: only about three percent of books published in English each year are translations. Three percent. In a world where some of the most extraordinary writing is happening in Korean, Japanese, and dozens of other languages, that gap represents an enormous cultural loss — stories that simply never reach the readers who might need them most.

Understory Editions was founded to close that gap, one book at a time.

For years, our family's life has been shaped by deep engagement with East Asian culture — through martial arts, through the patient study of language, through friendships that crossed borders and assumptions. That immersion opened a window we couldn't close: the window onto a literary world that most English-language readers never see. Japanese ideas about craft and restraint. Korean writing that moves between philosophy and grief with breathtaking fluency. Books that were changing lives across Asia while remaining invisible to the rest of the world.

The moment that crystallized everything was Han Kang's Nobel Prize in Literature in 2024. It wasn't a surprise to anyone who had been paying attention to Korean letters — her work had been extraordinary for decades. What the Nobel announced to the world, Korean readers had already known: that Korean literature is in a golden era, producing voices of uncommon depth and originality. And that most of those voices remain untranslated.

We are based in the Pacific Northwest, a region shaped by its position at the edge of two worlds — where the American interior meets the Pacific Rim, where fir forests give way to sea. That geography feels like a metaphor for what we do: we stand at the meeting point of languages and bring things across.

Small presses have an advantage that larger publishers sometimes don't: every title matters. Every book on our list was chosen because we believe in it completely — not because it fills a slot, not because it fits a trend, but because we couldn't imagine not publishing it. That level of commitment shapes everything, from the translator we choose to the design of the cover to the booksellers we call.

We are new. We are honest about that. But we are serious, and we are here for the long term.