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HarperCollins and 4th Estate unveil new imprint with Reni Eddo-Lodge
HarperCollins and 4th Estate have announced the launch of a new imprint, Monument Books, founded in collaboration with Reni Eddo-Lodge, author of the international bestseller Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race.
Monument Books is being founded as a "revelatory, original and agenda-setting writing". The list will be curated by Eddo-Lodge and "represent the most essential thinking, storytelling, reporting and creativity today". The imprint’s mission statement continues: "We seek to champion distinctive writers from across the world and to help them spark ideas, make change and shape the cultural conversation. Our books will enrich, empower, move and inspire. We are driven by community: of our authors, our readers and in the wider world."
Eddo-Lodge said: "I’m delighted to be working with the excellent team at 4th Estate to bring Monument Books to life. Together, we’ll publish books that inspire, take readers by surprise and deepen their understanding of the world. I was a reader before I was a writer, and I want to give readers that same electrifying feeling I’ve experienced over the years with my favourite books."
The imprint will launch in February 2025 and publish three books each year of non-fiction with select fiction and classics. Reni Eddo-Lodge will serve as editor-at-large working with publishing director Kishani Widyaratna and the team at 4th Estate.
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The launch title for the imprint will be Resistance: How protest shaped Britain and how photography shaped protest, compiled by Steve McQueen and edited by Clarrie Wallis, director of the Turner Contemporary, with Sarah Harrison. Kishani Widyaratna, publishing director, acquired volume and audio rights in the UK and commonwealth territories in the title from Emma Paterson at Aitken Alexander. The book is publishing in hardback in February 2025 accompanying an exhibition opening at the Turner Contemporary in Margate on 22 February.
The book contains 120 archival photographs, "ranging from rare, covert surveillance images to era-defining press shots", spanning from the radical suffrage movement in 1903 to the Anti-Iraq War Protest in 2003. These are interwoven with firsthand accounts from witnesses to these historic moments and expert analysis.
McQueen said: "This exhibition and book explores how people have challenged the status quo—a mission that feels especially urgent in today’s political climate."
A statement from 4th Estate on the new imprint reads: "The name Monument Books is derived from the idea of each work on the list standing as a new monument to ideas, stories and culture, as well as uplifting or refashioning past legacies. The aspiration is that each title will become a landmark on a reader’s journey of discovery through the list and beyond. It also borrows from the idea of a monument as a meeting place and books as a point of connection."
Widyaratna said: "At a time when the world feels increasingly polarised and uncertain, it is a privilege for us to be working with Reni Eddo-Lodge on an imprint that will help connect readers to the world around them and to each other. Monument Books brings together the writers and thinkers who can help us understand our past, navigate our present and map new futures, and who do so in vital and beautiful ways. Resistance, compiled by visionary artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen, is the perfect launch title."
