Arcadia Books is an innovative independent publishing house established in 1996. We endeavour to bring our readers the best of world writing today.

Arcadia Books was established in 1996. Our imprints are Arcadia Books (fiction, translated world fiction, biography, memoirs, travel, gay and gender studies), EuroCrime (European crime fiction), Bliss (popular fiction and non-fiction) and BlackAmber (multicultural writing).

Arcadia was winner of the Sunday Times Small Publisher of the Year in 2002/03, after having been short-listed for the previous three years. In 2007 we were shortlisted for the Independent Publishers' Guild Diversity Award. In 2008 Arcadia won the IPG Diversity Award (Independent Publishing Award) and was shortlisted for the 2008 UK Trade & Investment International Achievement of the Year (Independent Publishing Awards), for the 2008 Baker Tilly Imprint & Editor of the Year (British Book Industry Awards) and for the 2008 Decibel Cultural Diversity Award (British Book Industry Awards).

We secured Arts Council funding for another three years, largely thanks to a campaign by our supporters, led by Doris Lessing, Vanessa Redgrave and Joanna Lumley. The list was stronger than ever, and this was made evident by the number of prizes our authors and we either won, or were shortlisted or longlisted for.

Lorraine Connection by Dominique Manotti and translated from the French by Amanda Hopkinson and Ros Schwartz
1. Winner of the 2008 CWA Duncan Lawrie International Dagger
2. Nominated for the 2008 ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards in the Author of the Year Award
3. Nominated for the 2008 ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards in the Breakthrough Author Award
A Deal with the Devil by Martin Suter and translated from the German by Peter Millar
4. Shortlisted for the 2008 CWA Duncan Lawrie International Dagger
The Model by Lars Saabye Christensen and translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett
5. Shortlisted for the 2008 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize
6. Nominated for the 2009 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
Bahia Blues by Yasmina Traboulsi and translated from the French by Polly McLean
7. Longlisted for the 2008 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize
Mistress by Anita Nair
8. Longlisted for the 2008 Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction
The Book of Chameleons by José Eduardo Agualusa and translated
from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn
9. Nominated for the 2008 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
10. Winner of the 2007 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize
Priest of Evil by Matti Joensuu and translated from the Finnish by David Hackston
11. Nominated for the 2008 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
Blood of the Angels by Eugenio Fuentes and translated from the Spanish by Martin Schifino and Selina Packard
12. Nominated for the 2008 ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards in the Author of the Year
13. Nominated for the 2008 ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards in the Breakthrough Author Award
Water-Blue Eyes by Domingo Villar and translated from the Spanish by Martin Schifino
14. Nominated for the 2008 ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards in the Author of the Year
15. Nominated for the 2008 ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards in the Breakthrough Author Award

Highlights of 2009 include a really outstanding début novel by Jenn Ashworth, called A Kind of Intimacy and about a severely overweight young woman, a social pariah of sorts, and we are also delighted to welcome Tahar Ben Jelloun, Maureen Duffy, Petros Markaris and Dominick Dunne to Arcadia. Prize-winning authors with new novels include Michael Arditti, Barry Maitland, Dominique Manotti, Lars Saabye Christensen, Jan Kjærstad and José Eduardo Agualusa. Inspirations is a new series edited by Rosemarie Hudson, founder of BlackAmber. These pocket-sized biographies, aimed at students and general readers alike, will celebrate African, Caribbean and Asian heroes. We’re kicking off with books on Barack Obama; Usain Bolt, the Olympic gold sprinter; and Aimé Césaire, the Martiniquais poet, playwright, political activist and bard of the Negritude movement; while forthcoming titles will include biographies of Spike Lee, Cuban ballet dancer Carlos Acosta and Sir Willard White, the Jamaican bass baritone.
We now publish writers from 35 countries.

Arcadia, which has consistently punched above its weight, has opened the celebrations for its 10th anniversary by signing the latest novel by Joan Smith, polemicist, campaigner and Independent journalist. What Will Survive is set in Lebanon in July 1997, when a young English woman, a minor celeb, is killed by a land mine. The press descends on her Somerset home, linking her death with Diana, Princess of Wales's high-profile campaign against landmines. Publisher Gary Pulsifer believes this "gripping political thriller" has obvious parallels with the current situation in the Lebanon and plans to rush it through for spring publication'
- Boyd Tonkin, Independent (13.10.06)



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