Congratulations to Oneworld!
Heartfelt congratulations to Oneworld for running off with the Booker Prize for the second year running with Paul Beatty's The Sellout - an amazing achievement! It makes me so proud to be working within the independent publishing sphere and supporting passionate publishing. Even if Inpress don't have the pleasure of working with Oneworld directly, we and many other independent publishers, will be celebrating their well deserved good fortune, and will revel in the David and Goliath imagery of winning against the might of large conglomerate publishing houses.
We at Inpress work with so many talented and dedicated independent publishers and this just backs up the confidence I have that, should they want it, their Booker time will come too.
Not that we haven't had our own Booker success stories with the following shortlisted titles, The Last Hundred Days - Patrick McGuinness from Welsh publisher, Seren. The Garden of Evening Mists - Tan Twan Eng from new recruit to Inpress, Myrmidon. (Tan Twan Eng also had his previous title on the longlist The Gift of Rain).
We also like to claim publisher of Tilted Axis and acclaimed translator Deborah Smith's winning of The International Booker with her translation of Han Kang's The Vegetarian as our own too. Feel proud of those you work with!
While feeling so upbeat, I think it's time we added a prize-winners section to our categories - Inpress publishers and their authors are constantly winning awards and we will make sure we celebrate that.