Barbara Kennedy Epler is editor-in-chief, president and publisher of New Directions, an independent publisher founded in 1936.  Among  her many responsibilities are acquiring new authors, such as W.G. Sebald and Roberto Bolaño, as well as other great writers like Laszlo Krasnahorkhai ,Victor Pelevin, Inger Christensen, Yoel Hoffmann, Yoko Tawada,  and Javier Marías.   New Directions publishes about 40 new books a year and maintains more than a 1,000 titles on their backlist, publishing a great deal of fiction and poetry in translation as well as American experimental poets.