Literary Translator & Founding Editor
Idara Crespi was born in Milan and grew up between Italy and Canada. She studied Journalism at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in Calgary — a practical education, oriented toward readers rather than disciplines — and came to translation through her work writing about arts and culture. She was reviewing an Italian novel when she found the published English translation had made it smaller in every way that mattered. When the review was done, she translated the novel herself. Espresso Publishing House grew from that project.
Her work begins with a question that guides everything Espresso Publishing House does: which novels — celebrated in their original languages, beloved by generations of readers in France, Italy, Spain, or Germany — have never been adequately translated into English? Which works deserve the kind of careful, unhurried editorial attention that transforms a good translation into a genuinely readable book?
The answers, she has found, are more numerous than most readers would expect. The English-language literary canon is remarkable. But it is also, by any measure, incomplete — and the gap between what has been translated and what deserves to be translated is one of the most interesting territories in literature.
Idara's editions are known for their elegant presentation and the quality of their contextual framing. Each title she translates is accompanied by an original introduction, placing the work and its author in their historical and literary moment without diminishing the pleasure of encountering the story itself.
Her first translation, The Blind Woman of Sorrento by Francesco Mastriani, was published in March 2026 — the first complete English translation of a novel once read by millions of Italians across the peninsula. Her second, Marta, or Faith — the opening volume of Mastriani's epic I Misteri di Napoli — is forthcoming in September 2026.
Espresso Publishing House is a boutique literary imprint dedicated to foreign-language fiction that merits an English-language life. We look for works that are legally available, commercially interesting, and — above all — genuinely worth reading: novels with literary ambition, historical depth, and the capacity to surprise readers who encounter them for the first time.
We do not republish existing translations. Each Espresso edition is a new translation made directly from the original-language source text, prepared specifically for a contemporary English-language audience. We care about the quality of the translation, the design of the book, and the framing that helps readers understand why they are holding something worth their time.
Our catalog currently spans Italian and Spanish literature, with French, German, and Russian titles in preparation. The Espresso Italian Classics series launched in March 2026 with Francesco Mastriani's The Blind Woman of Sorrento. The Espresso Spanish Classics series opens in May 2026 with Alarcón's The Three-Cornered Hat, translated by Inés Bou.
The name reflects our ambitions: concentrated, carefully crafted, small-batch. European in spirit, international in scope. Every title we publish is there because we believe it belongs.
For rights enquiries, press, review copies, and general correspondence:
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