FOR THE ESOTERIC AND UNDEFINED
WHEN ONE ENCOUNTERS a local printing press, one would immediately assume that it publishes local writers, because that is what local presses do, right? It certainly seems that way if one looks at the most popular publishers in Singapore thus far. This is not so for Delere Press, a boutique press that chooses not to be bound to by geography or nationality, publishing books that deal with philosophy and aesthetics.
Rather than being a deliberate choice or a political statement, the decision to publish both local and international authors was an organic one. The brains behind Delere, namely writer Jeremy Fernando and illustrator Yanyun Chen, have friends spanning far and wide across the globe, most of which are writers and artists. For them, the main driving force behind publication is to provide a home for text and images that may not have a home otherwise, no matter what its geographical origins.
Requiem for the Factory by Jeremy Fernando, Kenny Png and Yanyun Chen. Photo credit: Cecilia Erismann, 2014
No matter how strange, esoteric or completely left-field, if a particular manuscript peaks both their interests, they will publish it. “We are hardly the only press that works that way,” Jeremy remarks. “In fact, I know of a Dutch publishing press that would publish books in Klingon. This same press would also publish books in some obscure Syrian dialect, which maybe three people in the world can understand. And of these three, two of them worked on the book! There are people who do things like that, and we just so happen to be one of them.” It is clear that for the dynamic duo behind Delere Press, content and aesthetics are what truly matters, and as they speak, their passion for their books shine through as well.
This careful curation and dedication can also be seen through the designs of their publications. None of their books look remotely similar to each other, and it was obvious that each book was carefully created with its own distinct flair and flavor. When asked about their process in creating a book, they explained that their model is to pair artists and illustrators with writers.
For Delere Press, what matters the most is the dialogue and conversation that happens between the images and the content.“It’s definitely a journey for us to take. Sometimes, the images would come first, other times it was the text. It’s a matter of pairing the two together to form some sort of conversation and harmony.”
“We didn’t see the need to have a prescribed look for all our books – we recognize that we are a small boutique press, and we are probably going to remain that way in the foreseeable future. In the end, all we want to do is to create and publish something that shows the artists and the writers’ work in the most beautiful way possible.”
You can find the publications by Delere Press on Amazon and Book Depository.