Fitzcarraldo is a small publishing house, only about 10 years old, based in Deptford, a yet to be gentrified area of London. It had ambitions from the very beginning: to remain independent, a tricky aim for any publishing company, and to specialise in literary fiction, in both original English and in translation. They were prepared to take on writing that maybe mainstream publishers would not be interested in. Brave, I would say.
Founded by Jacques Testard, the London imprint has actually found fame by publishing four writers with Nobel prizes, so this is suddenly more than a tiny, niche operation. The ‘New Yorker’ comments that Fitzcarraldo ‘makes challenging literature chic.’ Each fiction edition has a cover that is in some part a very particular shade of blue in the hope that this will become visually recognisable as Fitzcarraldo. Memoir, essays, non-fiction etc are white.
Annie Ernaux’s ‘The Years’ is a case in point. The author won the Nobel prize for literature in 2022 and her book was recently made into a play that this year has been on in the West End. The book is thus hugely successful. Well done Fitzcarraldo; a talent for finding excellent writing.
And most of their editions have French flaps … what’s not to like?