Turning a Leaf on Argentine Classics.

• Author: Buck, Daniel
• Position: El Elefante Blanco book publisher - Brief Article

AFTER A FOUR-DECADE career as a mother, lab assistant, congressional staffer, real estate agent, and antique dealer, Matra Gallardo decided to realize her dream and become a book publisher in her native Argentina. Her aspiration was not entirely a bolt from the blue. Literary blood runs in her veins. Her great-grandfather was a novelist, her father was a historian, and her sister is a novelist.

The initial reaction to Gallardo's plan was not entirely encouraging. Argentine historian Felix Luna, she recalls, "praised it as a positive undertaking," but thought "it would be economically a white elephant." Luna's bleak assessment of her financial prospects inspired her logo: El Elefante Blanco.

Since its founding in Buenos Aires in late 1996, El Elefante Blanco has been anything but, issuing some forty handsome volumes, each with a cover of an arresting antique print, a painting, or a modern photograph, and each displaying a discreet but lively white elephant. Albino elephants are revered in certain parts of Asia, and Gallardo has similar hopes for her totemic rendition in Argentina.

What prompted the publishing plunge? Gallardo says her objective is "to bring to light many works of great historic value that have been out of print for some time."

"It's something personal," Gallardo stresses. "I have great interest in literature from the beginning of Argentina's national cultural development, after Rosas's time." With more Argentine editorial houses being bought up by Spanish companies, Gallardo's homegrown venture is sailing intrepidly against the prevailing winds. So far it's been a successful voyage.

The Elefante Blanco series is a rich repast of literary travel, essays...