2020: How Much of These Hills is Gold

Pam Zhang’s mesmerising debut is longlisted for the Booker Prize, Longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2021 and a Barack Obama Book of the Year

2020: The Times I Knew I Was Gay

A Graphic memoir ‘for everyone. Candid, authentic and utterly charming’ – Sarah Waters.

Wins Good Reads Best Graphic Novel/Comic of the Year

2020: I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness

 A New York Times bestselling Reese’s Book Club pick by ‘a leading voice on racial justice’ – Layla Saad

2020: Jack by Marilynne Robinson 

One of America’s greatest novelists returns to Gilead and tells us the story of JACK

‘Grace and intelligence . . . [her work] defines universal truths about what it means to be human’ – Barack Obama 

A New York Times Bestseller

2020: Golem Girl

 ‘A hymn to life, love, family, and spirit’ – David Mitchell.   

The memoir of an artist born with disabilities who searches for freedom and connection in a society afraid of strange bodies. Winner of the Barbellion Prize. Shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award

2020: Nancy Spain

 Nancy Spain joins the Virago Modern Classics

‘Her detective novels are hilarious – less about detecting than delighting, with absurd farce and a wonderful turn of phrase . . . Nancy Spain was bold, she was brave, she was funny, she was feisty‘ – Sandi Toksvig

2020: Black Narcissus

Rumer Godden’s Black Narcissus becomes a haunting BBC drama starring Gemma Arterton

2020: Zora Neale Hurston

Virago Modern Classics reissues Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Dust Tracks on a Road and Jonah’s Gourd Vine. Introduced by Zadie Smith and Jesmyn Ward. With covers featuring designs by Harlem Renaissance artist, Lois Mailou Jones.  

‘One of the greatest writers of our time’ – Toni Morrison.

2020: Hag

‘Engaging, modern fables with a feminist tang’ ― Sunday Times Bestseller

2021: One Night, New York

A thrilling debut novel of corruption and murder set in 1930 New York – from the winner of the Virago/The Pool New Crime Writer Award

2021: The Light of Days

A New York Times Bestseller

‘Original and compelling, an untold story of rare and captivating power’ – Philippe Sands

‘Rescues a long-neglected aspect of history from oblivion … it preserves truly significant knowledge. … a trove of unknown or forgotten information about the Holocaust of genuine import and impact.’ Eva Hoffman, TLS

2021: Sankofa

A Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick and a BBC 2 Between the Covers Book Club Pick.Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction Futures Prize.  An Amazon Best Book of the Year.

‘I LOVED Sankofa SO MUCH. It explores identity, duality, belonging, racism, post-colonialism … and the writing style is beguilingly cool, wry, detached’ ― Marian Keyes

2021: The Brink of Being

Julia Bueno wins the BMA Medical Popular Medicine  Book of the Year Award

2021: The Turnout by Megan Abbott

Megan Abbott joins Virago with her first New York Times bestseller.

`Abbott is a legend for good reason. No one combines the style of classic noir with the psyches of sophisticated men and women who are willing to do anything–anything‘ – Washington Post

2021: Attia Hosain

Virago Modern Classics reissues Attia Hosain, an influential twentieth-century Indian writer, with an introduction by Kamila Shamsie: ‘There is so much to love and admire in these stories – their understanding of heartbreak, their attention to affection and love across many divides.’

2021: Book of Mother

Longlisted for the International Man Booker and longlisted for the Warwick Prize for Translation.

A prize-winning tour de force when it came out in France, this brilliant translation of Violaine Huisman’s witty, immersive autofiction is  ‘an indelible portrait of a brilliant, beautiful, mad and maddening woman… ‘ – Andrew Solomon

2021: Will She Do?

‘Yes, she will: this vivid, honest memoir by a great actress and a natural writer goes down a treat’ – Tom Stoppard

Shortlisted for the Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize, 2022 and short-listed for the Theatre Book Prize, 2022. Audio book read brilliantly by Dame Eileen Atkins herself

2021: The Amazing Mr Blunden

This childhood favourite is published in the Virago Modern Classics. Was made into a Christmas Sky original film, written, directed and starring Mark Gatiss, with Simon Callow and Tamsin Greig. An enthralling ghost story with a time-travelling twist.

2021: Girl, Interrupted

First published in 1992, it now becomes a favourite with TikTok readers

2021: Under a Dark Angel’s Eye

To mark the centenary of Patricia Highsmith’s centenary, Virago publishes a definitive, newly collected volume of short stories, confirming Highsmith as a genius of the genre. Featuring two stories that have never been published before, and introduced by Carmen Maria Machado.

2021: Katharine Whitehorn, CBE

The great journalist. Katharine Whitehorn, CBE. dies.  Her most famous book Cooking in A Bedsitter was first published in 1961 and reissued by Virago in 2008. She also wrote her memoir, Selected Memory.

2021: Shirley Williams

Shirley Williams, the bold and beloved politician, daughter of Vera Brittain, dies.  Her biography, Climbing the Bookshelves is reissued with a forward by her daughter, Rebecca in 2022.

2022: Virago welcomes Monica Ali

An instant Sunday Times bestseller.  Winner of the South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature, Sunday Times Bestseller, Radio Four Serial read by Meera Syal. Longlisted for the Comedy Women in Print Prize.

‘Rich, sensitive and gloriously entertaining’ – Tash Aw
‘An utterly unputdownable exploration of modern love’ – Stylist

2022: Behind Closed Doors

Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing

‘Brilliant . . . I love this book’ – Lemn Sissay
‘A must-read book’ – Jacqueline Wilson

2022: Soundings

Award-winning memoir about whales, motherhood and climate change. Winner of the RSL Giles St Aubyn Award. Telegraph Best Travel Books of the Year. Guardian Top Ten Nature Memoirs

‘Beautiful . . . Justifies its place alongside nature writing classics such as H is for Hawk’ – New Statesman.

2022: Selma Blair

The New York Times bestselling memoir by acclaimed actor Selma Blair: gullible ingenue in Cruel Intentions. Preppy ice queen in Legally Blonde. Fire-starter in Hellboy. Muse to Karl Lagerfeld. Face of Chanel. Cover model. Advocate for the multiple sclerosis community. 

2022: Brave Hearted

‘This book delivers a blazing 360 degree view of the American story. Each page is packed with gumption and grit and genius’ – Bettany Hughes

2022: Barbara Pym

The fabulous Barbara Pym gets a new look

2022: Monica Dickens

Much-loved writer Monica Dickens is reissued in glorious covers

2022: Zarifa

Astonishing memoir that offers an unparalleled perspective of the last two decades in Afghanistan from the country’s youngest woman mayor. Featured in Netflix documentary In Her Hands.

‘Will break your heart’ – Christina Lamb. 

2022: Fran Lebowitz

Virago publishes the essays of New York legend and satirist, Fran Lebowitz, subject of Martin Scorsese’s hit Netflix series, Pretend It’s a City. It becomes a Sunday Times bestseller.

2022: The Hyacinth Girl

From the acclaimed biographer, a book that uncovers Eliot’s hidden muse.

`Her meticulous research and inspired storytelling [means] we will never read [Eliot’s] poems the same way again’ – Heather Clark.

‘Extraordinary.. a rare work of sympathy and insight’ – Colm Tóibín

2022: Between Friends

Vera Brittain (Testament of Youth) and Winifred Holtby (South Riding), two of Virago’s best known and much-celebrated authors. Their letters are a tribute to a fascinating friendship. Mark Bostridge’s biography of Vera Brittain  is reissued with a new introduction.  

2022: Shirley Hazzard

The authorised biography of one of the greatest writers in the English language, author of The Transit of Venus and winner of the National Book Award

‘Lambent, discerning, deeply intelligent and empathetic’ –  Financial Times

2022: Fingersmith turns 20

It’s 20 years since this iconic novel by Sarah Waters was published! A beautiful hardback edition with new afterword from the author is published.

2022: Helena Whitbread MBE

Helena Whitbread is awarded an MBE from the new King for her work in discovering the code behind Ann Lister’s diaries.

2022: Carmen Callil

Our founder, the utterly unique legend, Dame Carmen Callil, dies in autumn 2022 at age 84. What a difference she made to the world: a publisher and writer who championed female writers and transformed the canon of English literature

2023: Virago turns 50

We are celebrating our 50th anniversary with new titles and beautiful reissues to be released throughout the year

2023: Furies

DRAGON. TYGRESS. SHE-DEVIL. HUSSY. SIREN. WENCH. HARRIDAN. MUCKRAKER. SPITFIRE. VITUPERATOR. CHURAIL. TERMAGANT. FURY. WARRIOR. VIRAGO. 

For centuries past, and all across the world, there are words that have defined and decried us. Words that raise our hackles, fire up our blood; words that tell a story.

In this blazing cauldron of a book, fifteen bestselling, award-winning writers have taken up their pens and reclaimed these words, creating an entertaining and irresistible collection of feminist tales for our time

2023: The Virago Team

The Virago editorial team, from left to right: Anna Kelly, Angela Cammarota, Donna Coonan, Lennie Goodings, Sarah Savitt, Alexa Allen-Batifoulier

2023: Five Gold Reads

We reissue a ground-breaking title from each of our decades: The Sadeian Woman by Angela Carter, The Fat Black Woman’s Poems by Grace Nicols, Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters , Living Dolls by Natasha Walter and The Friend by Sigrid Nunez