Partners
The Leverhulme Trust
The Diasporic Literary Archives Network is an international partnership, funded during its first three years by the Leverhulme Trust. Led by The University of Reading in the UK, the other network partners include The Beinecke Rare Book Room and Manuscript Library at Yale University in the USA, Centro per gli studi sulla tradizione manoscritta di autori moderni e contemporanei in Italy, l’Institut Mémoires de l’édition contemporaine (IMEC) in France, The National Library and Archives Service of Namibia and a prominent archivist from Trinidad and Tobago.
The University of Reading
The University of Reading houses the Location Register of Twentieth-Century English Literary Manuscripts and Letters, the Writers, Artists & Their Copyright Holders database (in collaboration with University of Texas), and is the leading repository of publishers’ archives in the UK, with holdings of major literary firms, including Longman, Chatto & Windus and Jonathan Cape. The study of modern literary manuscripts and twentieth-century book and publishing history is an international research strength across the institution. The university holds the world’s largest Samuel Beckett archive and significant papers of Italian writer Luigi Meneghello. Access the professional profiles of the project members at the University or Reading.
The Beinecke Library
The Beinecke Library at Yale University holds one of the world’s finest collections of rare books and literary manuscripts. There is a strong focus on American authors, but British, French and Slavic literatures are also well represented, and the holdings relating to Futurism, Dada and Surrealism are among the most extensive in the world. Access the professional profiles of project members at The Beinecke.
IMEC
The IMEC was established in 1988 by a group of publishers and academic researchers in collaboration with the French Ministry of Culture. Its mission is to preserve modern literary archives, create a modern literary heritage, and mediate between scholars, authors, and publishing houses. The collection encompasses a wide variety of literary and artistic production. Notable holdings include the papers of the foremost publishers in France, Hachette, Larousse and Flammarion, and renowned French and Francophone authors such as Marguerite Duras, Jacques Derrida, and Tahar Ben Jalloun, as well as material relating to the translations and publishing history of Samuel Beckett.
The National Library and Archives Service of Namibia
The National Library and Archives Service of Namibia is an example of the bringing together of library and archives services at a national level (as pioneered in Canada) and has an excellent international reputation. Its Director chairs the regional branch for Eastern and Southern Africa (ESARBICA) at the International Council on Archives. The Namibian Archives Service had to focus on other priorities after the country’s independence and has only recently begun to take an interest in literary manuscripts.
Access the professional profile of the Namibia’s director of the National Archives Veno V Kauaria.
Trinidad and Tobago
Helena Leonce is a distinguished figure in the archives of Trinidad and Tobago and in the West Indies more generally. She has served as Government Archivist of Trinidad and Tobago and represented the whole Caribbean region as President of CARBICA (the Caribbean archival association within the International Council on Archives – ICA) from 2006 until 2010. She now serves on the committee of ICA’s Section for the Archives of Literature and Art (SLA), and has a number of literary interests as author and archivist. Ms Leonce is a member of several international organisations for professional archivists and has given papers on archival matters at conferences around the world.
Centro per gli studi sulla tradizione manoscritta di autori moderni e contemporanei
The Centro per gli studi sulla tradizione manoscritta di autori moderni e contemporanei was established in 1969 and is based at the University of Pavia. The centre hosts one of the largest collections of manuscripts of twentieth-century Italian authors, among these the papers and correspondence of Nobel Laureates Grazia Deledda and Eugenio Montale, and best-selling author Umberto Eco. The centre also holds documents related to Roman Jakobson, Samuel Beckett, and Valéry Larbaud. It houses a substantial collection of epistolary exchanges, and considerable documentation on a number of Italian publishing houses, twentieth-century Italian literary magazines and cultural institutions.
In November 2013, the network became an approved project of the International Council on Archives, by decision of ICA’s Programme Commission.