About Alma Books

Alma Books was set up in October 2005 by Alessandro Gallenzi and Elisabetta Minervini, the founders of Hesperus Press. Publishing from fifteen to twenty titles a year, mainly in the field of contemporary literary fiction, Alma takes around sixty per cent of its titles from English-language originals, while the rest are translations from other languages such as French, Spanish, Italian, German and Japanese. Alma also publishes two or three non-fiction titles each year.

Alma's launch title, Anthony McCarten's The English Harem, sold over 20,000 copies when it was released in December 2005. This early success was matched, in 2006, by William T. Vollmann's National Book Award-winning epic, Europe Central, Mike Stocks's sparkling Indian comedy, White Man Falling, winner of the Goss First Novel award, Robert M. Pirsig's Lila, a sequel to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and Tom McCarthy's debut novel Remainder, which has garnered huge critical acclaim both in the UK and across the world.

2007 brought Alma the phenomenal success of Michel Benoît's religious thriller, The Thirteenth Apostle, which has now sold close to 60,000 copies, as well as Jane Hawking's memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen and Carmen Posadas's witty Moroccan mystery, The Last Resort.

In 2008 Alma has consolidated its status as one of the most adventurous – but at the same time commercial – publishers in the English language, with remarkable additions to its list such as Alexander Terekhov's satirical masterpiece The Rat-Killer and Tibor Fischer's new novel, Good to Be God.

In 2009 Alma's programme expanded along the same lines – with a similar balance of international and English titles, established writers and debut authors. Our highlights for 2009 include Sarah Stonich's beautifully written The Ice Chorus, a new edition of The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy with a foreword by Doris Lessing, Kachi A. Ozumba's darkly humorous The Shadow of a Smile, and Rosie Alison's moving war-time novel, The Very Thought of You.

2010 saw Rosie's novel being shortlisted for the Orange Prize for fiction and longlisted for many other important literary prizes such as the RNA Romantic Novel of the Year and the Le Prince Maurice Prize. We are also delighted that Kachi's book has been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize and longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize. Later in the year, we will be publishing the works of such renowned authors as Michel Houellebecq, Alberto Manguel and Lindsay Clarke. The commercial success we are enjoying will not change our focus on quality and literary excellence.

Alma – which is Spanish for 'soul' – is a publisher that regards a book as an aesthetic artefact rather than as a mass-produced commodity. The company's whole emphasis lies on quality over quantity, all the way from choosing projects for publication to creating the physical look and feel of the books. Alma works closely and intimately with authors to develop the best possible finished scripts, and displays a commitment to the kind of professional editing, copy-editing and proofreading that is dying out elsewhere.

In April 2007, Alma Books, in partnership with Oxford-based non-fiction publisher Oneworld Publications, launched a new classics list, Oneworld Classics, and acquired Calder Publications and the Calder Bookshop. This year, Oneworld Classics has launched two new imprints, The Calder Collection and the opera and classical-music list Overture Publishing.