Every publishing house has an origin story. Ours starts at a bus stop in Tirana.
Names matter. They’re the first thing a reader learns about a book, an author, a press. So when people ask where “Ninth Floor Press” comes from, we love telling them — because the answer isn’t a marketing exercise. It’s a real place, in a real city, that we happen to love.
Nëntë Katëshet
In Tirana, the capital of Albania, there’s a neighborhood — and a bus stop — called Nëntë Katëshet. The name means “the nine floors,” because for a time buildings were not allowed to be taller than nine floors. Now there are truly tall buildings in the city, but they’re all fairly new.
It’s an ordinary place, Nëntë Katëshet — and that’s exactly the point. It’s not on the front of the guidebooks. It’s the texture of an actual life in an actual city — the corner you know by heart, the stop the driver calls out, the name you say without thinking. And it belongs to a city we love living in.
Why name a publisher after a bus stop
Because that’s exactly what we want our books to be: a fixed point in someone’s day. The stop you look forward to.
Readers don’t come to genre fiction for homework. They come for comfort, escape, a laugh, a good cry, a puzzle, a swoon. They come the way you come home — reliably, gratefully, at the end of a long day. We wanted a name that carried that feeling. Not a grand literary flourish. A neighborhood. A landmark you can count on. The ninth floor you navigate by.
We wanted the name to feel less like a monument and more like a place you’re glad to arrive at.
A house rooted in one city, open to many languages
There’s a lovely tension in taking a small, specific, deeply local name and putting it on books that travel the world in many languages. But we think that tension is exactly right. The most universal stories are the most specific ones — a particular town, particular characters, a particular kind of longing. Nëntë Katëshet is specific. Tirana is specific. And from that one specific place, we send stories out to readers who will never see our bus stop but will absolutely recognize the feeling of a book that feels like home.
It also says something about who we are. We’re not a faceless imprint headquartered nowhere. We’re a house that grew out of a love for a particular city and a belief that good stories deserve to reach people in their own language, wherever they are.
From a place to a promise
So that’s the story. Ninth Floor Press is named for Nëntë Katëshet, a neighborhood in Tirana, chosen out of affection for a city and for the ordinary, dependable comfort of a place you know by heart.
When you see our name on a book, that’s the promise underneath it: that this story is somewhere you can count on arriving — and somewhere you’ll be glad to come back to. Get off here. You’re home.
This is just the beginning of the story. Follow From the Publisher to meet our authors, explore our genres, and watch our catalogue grow, one language and one book at a time.
Keep Reading
- Why We Publish Across Languages → How one city became a home for stories in many languages
- The Stories We Love to Publish → What kind of books carry the Ninth Floor Press name
- Behind the Pen Name: Meet Our Authors → The writers behind our books
What does the name Ninth Floor Press mean?
It comes from Nëntë Katëshet — Albanian for “the nine floors” — the name of a neighborhood and bus stop in Tirana, Albania, named long ago for a nine-story building that served as a local landmark. We chose it because we want our books to be the kind of dependable, comforting fixed point that a familiar neighborhood stop is.
Where does Nëntë Katëshet come from?
Nëntë Katëshet is a real place in Tirana, the capital of Albania. The name references a building that was once tall enough to become a landmark for the whole surrounding district — the kind of everyday place people navigate their lives by.
Is Ninth Floor Press connected to Tirana?
Yes. The name grew directly out of a love for living in Tirana. The press is rooted in that city even as it publishes fiction for readers around the world in multiple languages.
Why would a publisher name itself after a bus stop?
Because a beloved local stop is a fixed, comforting point in daily life — exactly what we want our books to be for readers. The name captures the idea of a story you can count on and are always glad to return to.