Fitzcarraldo Editions

Fitzcarraldo Editions is an independent British book publisher based in Deptford, London, specialising in literary fiction and long-form essays in both translation and English-language originals.^[1] It focuses on ambitious, imaginative, and innovative writing by little-known and neglected authors.^[2] Fitzcarraldo Editions currently publishes twenty-two titles a year.^[3] Four of Fitzcarraldo's authors have gone on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature: Svetlana Alexievich (2015), Olga Tokarczuk (2018), Annie Ernaux (2022) and Jon Fosse (2023).

Fitzcarraldo Editions

Status	Active
Founded	2014; 11 years ago (2014)
Founder	Jacques Testard
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Headquarters location	Deptford, London
Distribution	Grantham Book Services
Publication types	Fiction Essays
Official website	fitzcarraldoeditions.com

History

Fitzcarraldo Editions was founded in 2014 when Jacques Testard bought the English-language rights to Second-Hand Time by Svetlana Alexievich for £3500 at the Frankfurt Book Fair.^[4] Alexievich later won the Nobel Prize, netting a "six-figure" sum for the publisher. The name comes from the 1982 Werner Herzog film Fitzcarraldo.

The books are designed by Ray O’Meara, using a custom serif typeface called Fitzcarraldo.^[5][4] The books are known for their minimalist design, with fiction titles deploying plain covers in International Klein Blue with white text and non-fiction using the reverse: white covers with text in International Klein Blue.^[6]

Fitzcarraldo Editions publishes the work of Svetlana Alexievich, Alejandro Zambra, Sheila Heti, Mathias Énard, Annie Ernaux,^[7] Joshua Cohen, Alaa Abd el-Fattah, Olga Tokarczuk, Jon Fosse, Fernanda Melchor, Ian Penman, Jeremy Cooper, and Paul B. Preciado, among other authors.^[4][8]

Along with New Directions Publishing and Giramando Publishing, Fitzcarraldo Editions hosts the Novel Prize, a biennial award for a book-length work of literary fiction written in English by published and unpublished writers.^[9] Fitzcarraldo Editions also hosts the annual Essay Prize, in conjuction with Mahler & LeWitt Studios.^[10]

The company's logo shows a bell with the letters F and Z, and relates to the film Fitzcarraldo; it has been described as "a nod to the challenges and commitment necessary to run a successful independent press" with "a play on early printers marks, with the initials F and Z, recalling the symbols of the earliest printed books".^[11]