MacLehose Press celebrates fifth anniversary

MacLehose Press is marking its fifth birthday in style next year, with a range of events and promotions designed to help people "read the world".

Central to its plans is a new sampler of dozens of books both from the press' past five years, and those due to be published next year, including samples from Vasily Grossman, Anuradha Roy, and Stieg Larsson.

The sampler, Read the World, will go out free to bookshops participating in the stock offer, to be given away to customers. Readers can then use a voucher in the back of the sampler to claim £2 off any MacLehose Press title, which the bookshop sends back to the press for a refund.

The press, an imprint of Quercus, specialises in works in translation alongside selected English language authors. Founder and publisher Christopher MacLehose said: "The founding of the MacLehose Press in January 2008 was indeed a beginning, but it was also a continuation of what had been developed over many years at the Harvill Press (now Harvill/Secker within Random House): publishing literature in translation, publishing crime fiction in translation - now after five years from 20 languages - and a handful of exceptional writers in English."

He added: "The very existence of the imprint and its success owes everything to Quercus and to the model they devised and have extended with Jo Fletcher Books and Susan Watt's Heron Books imprints. It won't knock Penguin Random clean off their perch, but it gives publishing a vital alternative: independents within independents.”

Quercus c.e.o. Mark Smith added: "When Christopher joined us to found MacLehose Press, the hope was that he would build a world-class international list here at Quercus. In the five years since, our expectations have been surpassed. MacLehose Press exploded onto the scene in January 2008 - among the first three books published was Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - and the list has gone from strength to strength, with novels by Evelio Rosero and Philippe Claudel winning the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in two consecutive years. We look forward to continuing to build our profile in this important part of the market and to making the most of an extremely exciting forward list of translated crime fiction."

As well as the sample, MacLehose is launching a design competition for students to create new covers for five of its books. The winning entry will be produced as a box set, with the winner receiving a £1,000 travel bursary. To find out more, visit www.maclehosepress.com/competition.

The year-long celebration will be supported with a number of roadshows from Edinburgh to Bath, designed to introduce MacLehose Press authors to bookshops and readers.