Why Clockroot? A clock is the puffball head of a dandelion, that resilient invader whose seeds sow themselves in even the most inhospitable soil, whose roots are stubborn, penetrating, wilier than spades. A dandelion is a spot of wild, sunny disorder in the vast green American lawn—an assault against its propriety.

Think of Clockroot Books as the literary equivalent of the movement to return lawn to meadows and wildflowers and vegetables. A celebration of a wilder literature, in which each work seems as inevitable as a dandelion spotting the lawn, as clarifying as bitter greens at winter’s end. Works in translation are a crucial starting point for Clockroot, but most importantly, we’re interested in writing that confronts, that feels urgent, disorienting, vivid.