Virago Books

In light of recent events, we’re celebrating cultures outside of the UK that contribute to our diverse range of front list and Virago Modern Classic titles.   In Diamond Square, first published in 1962, is relatively unknown out of Spain, yet it is the most acclaimed Catalan novel of all time. Set in Barcelona during […]

Find out what the Virago team has been reading so far this year, and which books we are planning on packing in our suitcases this summer. I’ve been captivated by Susan Fletcher’s novel, Let Me Tell You About A Man I Knew. It’s a wonderfully atmospheric and moving read, filled with gorgeous descriptions of Provence in the south […]

This month, we publish the next of the Virago Modern Classic editions of Angela Thirkell’s best loved Barsetshire series. Here, lecturer and literary historian Kate Macdonald explains the context and enduring appeal of Thirkell’s comic fiction.  During the Second World War Angela Thirkell was a best-seller, publishing a novel every year for most of her career. This […]

Virago has been proud to publish the inimitable Margaret Atwood since 1979, and so we are thrilled to reveal the cover for her latest novel, The Heart Goes Last, out in paperback on 4th August 2016. Sinister and wickedly funny, in The Heart Goes Last Atwood tells the story of a near-future in which the lawful are locked up and the lawless […]

We’ve got an exciting year of books ahead at Virago. Here’s a personal selection of our new fiction highlights for 2016:   Rush Oh! is set in late 19th Century New South Wales.  It tells the story of one whaling family’s unlikely relationship with a pod of orcas (and the narrator’s ardent crush on a […]

Discover what the Virago team has loved reading this year, and the books we’ll be getting stuck into over the festive period. Sarah Waters’s The Paying Guests was a great success when we published in hardback last year and has continued to be a bestseller in paperback this year. It is vintage Sarah Waters in its intrigue, extraordinarily drawn […]