How to win four Nobel Prizes in literature

00:00 07:40

Sam Leith has narrated this article for you to listen to.

‘Hi Jacques,’ I say as the publisher of Fitzcarraldo Editions appears on my Zoom screen with his Franz Hals facial hair. ‘Thanks for making the time.’ I explain, apologetically but cheerily, that I’m going to be asking him to give his basic ‘how I keep winning Nobel Prizes’ spiel – at which, I say, he’s probably by now well practised. ‘Hm,’ he says, ‘I’m not sure about that. I’ll do my best.’

Though he’s grateful for what it’s done for his tiny publishing company, you sense that Jacques Testard probably finds it a bit irksome that it takes the ephemeral showbiz razzle of the Swedish academy to bring the experimental writing he publishes anything much in the way of public attention.

But there again, the Nobel thing is hard to ignore. The tiny highbrow press that Testard started less than ten years ago with a £70,000 loan (enough, he says he calculated at the time, to publish ten books and keep him alive for two years) now has seven employees.