Five Must Read Classics for 2023

This International Women’s Day we are celebrating a selection of must-read Virago Modern Classics.

From the fortieth anniversary edition of Nora Ephron’s Heartburn – a stunning clothbound Virago Modern Classic with an introduction by Stanley Tucci – to the thirtieth anniversary edition of Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen, here are five Virago Modern Classics you are going to want to pick up in 2023.

Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen

30th Anniversary Edition with a new introduction by the author

A clear-sighted, unflinching work that provokes questions about our definitions of sane and insane, Kaysen’s extraordinary memoir encompasses horror and razor-edged perception while providing vivid portraits of her fellow patients and their keepers.

Sunlight on a Broken Column by Attia Hosain

Introduced by Kamila Shamsie

Heartburn by Nora Ephron

40th Anniversary Edition, with a forward by Stanley Tucci

Seven months into her pregnancy, Rachel discovers that her husband is in love with another woman. The fact that this woman has a ‘neck as long as an arm and a nose as long as a thumb’ is no consolation. Food sometimes is, though, since Rachel is a cookery writer, and between trying to win Mark back and wishing him dead, she offers us some of her favourite recipes. Heartburn is a roller coaster of love, betrayal, loss and most satisfyingly revenge.

Corregidora by Gayl Jones

‘No novel about any black woman could ever be the same after this’ Toni Morrison

In April 2023 we will be publishing Butter by Gayl Jones – a dazzling new collection of short stories. Jones’s long career began with her blistering 1975 debut, Corregidora, which was edited by Toni Morrison. Upon publication in 1975, Corregidora was hailed as a masterpiece, winning acclaim from writers including James Baldwin, Maya Angelou and John Updike. Exploring themes such as race, sexuality and the long repercussions of slavery, this powerful novel paved the way for Beloved and The Colour Purple.

The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann

‘A truly great book. It is beautifully written, shrewdly observed and deftly crafted, but the novel’s real concern is what it means for a woman to live an authentic life’ Elizabeth Day