In praise of ... Galley Beggar
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Version 0 of 1. If you hadn't previously heard of Galley Beggar of Norwich, that is hardly surprising. It's a small-scale operation set up by a local bookseller. But Galley Beggar has something which big publishers too often lack: the courage to take a chance with an unknown author writing in an unconventional way. So Galley Beggar decided to publish a novel that Eimear McBride had written 10 years before and which a string of major houses had rejected. Now the company, and she, have been rewarded with the choice of her novel A Girl is a Half-formed Thing for the Baileys women's prize for fiction. The book was one of a clutch from publishers few people would ever have heard of that were chosen as best book of the year in the Guardian last Christmas – in this case, by the Booker prizewinner Eleanor Catton. All are publishers, like Galley Beggar, with scant resources but a cartload of guts. Let it no longer be said that Beggars cannot be choosers. |