About Us
Portobello publishes books with a purpose. But it believes that enlightenment ought to be entertainment. There will be nothing dull, slow or clotted about the prose we champion. Our writers will have the powers of expression to match their powers of imagination and intelligence.
Our aim is to offer our readers an enticing mixture of fiction and non-fiction that is full of life –unignorable, searching and fresh.
As the world simultaneously shrinks and expands, seems more knowable and more strange, we believe that a British publisher should be turning outward to face this new world and to engage with it. Wherever they originate – in whichever language – we believe that the most indelible tales, the most innovative writing, and the most urgent issues have the power to travel, and to transport their English-speaking readers to another time or place, or to see the world from an exhilaratingly different perspective.
Our aim is to offer our readers an enticing mixture of fiction and non-fiction that is full of life -- unignorable, searching and fresh. And to offer our writers a creative, supportive, and friendly environment in which their talent will be cherished and nurtured.
The two keynotes to our publishing programme are ‘internationalist’ and ‘activist’. Our publishing programme is half fiction, half non-fiction, with about a third of the titles overall being translated into English. Our non-fiction, being purposeful, is socially, politically and culturally engaged, across genres that include investigative journalism, cultural criticism, memoiristic history, war stories and reportage. Our fiction complements it, without being narrowly proscribed.
We will be brave, because we believe in the end it always pays, commercially and artistically, to be brave.
Portobello Books, London, 2009
