Daunt, Tilted Axis and Fum D'Estampa make Republic of Consciousness shortlist debuts

Three independent publishers have made the the Republic of Consciousness Prize shortlist for the first time in a year that sees a trio of nominations for books in translation.

Daunt, Tilted Axis and Fum d’Estampa are among presses receiving £1,500 for their work championing innovative fiction.

The shortlist features two novels and three collections of short stories, with titles translated from Catalan, Indonesian and French.

It includes Daunt Books for Our Lady of the Nile by Scholastique Mukasonga, translated by Melanie Mauthner; Fum D’Estampa Press for The Song of Youth by Montserrat Roig, translated by Tiago Miller; and Tilted Axis Press for Happy Stories, Mostly by Norman Erikson Pasaribu, translated by Tiffany Tsao.

Also on the list is Peninsula Press for Isabel Waidner’s Sterling, Karat, Gold , which won the Goldsmiths Prize, and Fitzcarraldo Editions for Dark Neighbourhood by Vanessa Onwuemezi.

After this year, the prize will have awarded £75,000 to small presses in the UK and Ireland. The shortlist was announced at the States of Independence, a free book festival hosted by De Montfort University’s Leicester Centre of Writing on 26th March.

Author Kate Briggs, who is on the judging panel with fellow writer Wendy Erskine and Foyles manager Martin Koerner, said: "Judging this prize has been a total privilege. It has been so energising to engage with the vital work that small presses are doing, to read alongside Wendy and Martin, to be pushed so far outside of my own reading habits and to have my sense of what writing can do so brilliantly—and repeatedly—challenged and expanded."