Indie Spotlight: Fitzcarraldo Editions

Many of you will have seen the familiar blue covers adorning our shelves here in the shop. They boast a pretty impressive back-catalogue of novels and essays, both originally in English and in translation. The London-based press is relatively young in the literary world, having originally been founded ten years ago. In that time the Fitzcarraldo team has already published the 2015, 2018, 2022 and 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature laureates Svetlana Alexievich, Olga Tokarczuk, Annie Ernaux and Jon Fosse. 

Founded in 2014 by Jacques Testard, the company currently publishes around 20 new titles per year (many of which are stocked in the shop). It focuses on ambitious, imaginative, and innovative writing by little-known or often neglected authors. The iconic, daringly uniform blue and white covers (designed by Ray O’Meara) give the line, and the writer’s works, a democratic feel. Books from new and unknown writers will look the same on the shelves as books from Nobel Prize winners. 

Unafraid to lean into the avant-garde, books such as The Birthday Party by Laurent Mauvignier fuse the paciness of a contemporary thriller with the flowing stream-of-consciousness narrative technique or a Proustian modernist novel. Or Compass by Mathias Enard, which builds a collage of a dreamscape which flowers beyond the limits of the page. 

Fitzcarraldo Editions, like many independent presses in the UK and around the world, focus on publishing important, often risk-taking titles without focus on enormous sales or topping bestseller lists. Where the big publishers will often overprint new titles in heinous bulk (often leaving behind a large surplus which get wasted and pulped), small publishers like Fitzcarraldo Editions will often make use of smaller print runs, which is better for both the environment and for the publishing industry. As I’m sure our customers know well, shopping small and local is as ethical as consumption can get. Nothing mirrors our shop’s ethos like the work that indie publishers do.

Take a look at our blog ‘In celebration of Fitzcarraldo Editions, A Womans Story by Annie Ernaux’.

All the above titles and many more are available in the shop. Order with us here.