Books & Poetry

Alma Books
According to the Times, Richmond-based Alma Books was ‘one to watch’ in 2006. Set up in 2005 by Italian husband-and-wife team Alessandro Gallenzi and Elisabetta Minervini, Alma (Spanish for ‘soul’) was preceded by Hesperus Press, also founded by the couple in 2001.

Another imprint – they’re busy, these two – One World Classics has been established to reinvigorate classic novels which have been unimaginatively produced by bigger publishers. With a combination of high-quality binding, beautiful covers and new introductions by contemporary writers, the pair hope to endear the classics to a new generation who might previously have been put off by flimsy paper and cramped typesetting.
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The couple use acid-free paper and ‘sawn’ binding (as opposed to the more common ‘perfect’ binding) – expensive touches which sound like financial suicide for a small independent – but Gallenzi says they ‘wanted to go back to the traditional values of publishing. Intellectual property is the most valuable commodity there is. It’s paying off. We have a good reputation and we deliver.’

Considering its founders’ Italian backgrounds, it’s no surprise that roughly 40 per cent of Alma’s output is fiction in translation. (They’re about to establish a prize to encourage young translators.) And as with most small publishers, the relationship between editor and author is much more intimate than it would be at a corporate imprint. Established authors who don’t need big advances often prefer the smaller publishers’ approach, and Gallenzi believes in ‘building up the profile of the author’.

Bestseller ‘Remainder’ by Tom McCarthy (5,000 in hardback, 20,000 in paperback).

Alma Books (020 8948 9550/www.almabooks.co.uk).