About Us

Founded in 1986 by Pete Ayrton, Serpent’s Tail is an independent publisher that champions independent thinking.

Twenty-five years on, it continues its commitment to publishing voices neglected by the mainstream, and still has a reputation for publishing the best of all kinds of writing, from literary novels to crime fiction, from work in translation to books on music and politics.

Owned by Profile (also independent) since 2007, with Pete Ayrton as Editor-at-Large, the list is as strong, and as daring, as ever. And here are some achievements from just over a quarter century of publishing:

3 Nobel Prize winning writers
Elfriede Jelinek
Herta Muller
Kenzaburo Oe

1 Orange Prize winner
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

1 Man Booker Prize shortlisting
Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan

2 Orange Prize shortlistings
Black Water Rising by Attica Locke
Billie Morgan by Joolz Denby

2 Orange Prize longlistings in our anniversary year 2011
The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives by Lola Shoneyin
Repeat It Today With Tears by Anne Peile

1 John Llewelyn Rhys Prize Winner
Boy A by Jonathan Trigell

1 Index on Censorship Prize
A Time for Machetes and Into the Quick of Life by Jean Hatzfeld

2 Independent Foreign Fiction Shortlistings
Broken Glass by Alain Mabanckou
Mercedes Benz by Pawel Huelle

1 Costa Shortlisting
Skin Lane by Neil Bartlett

Serpent’s Tail debuted
David Peace
George Pelecanos
Michel Houellebecq
Walter Mosley
Colm Toibin

Bestsellers and classics
Fiction in translation: The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa
History: Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano
Music: White Bicycles by Joe Boyd
Politics: Blackwater by Jeremy Scahill
Memoir: The Sexual Life of Catherine M by Catherine Millet
Crime: Black Water Rising by Attica Locke

Books on screen
Before Night Falls by Reinaldo Arenas
Red Riding by David Peace
Boy A by Jonathan Trigell
Miral by Rula Jebreal
Bouquet of Barbed Wire by Andrea Newman
Finding Fish by Antwone Fisher
We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

We are immensely proud of our classics – click here to view the list.

Coming in 2011:

Memoirs by Andy Kershaw, Barry Miles and Pauline Black
New work by acclaimed writers including Padgett Powell, Esi Edugyan and Helen Humphreys
A classic edition of Michel Houellebecq’s Whatever, with a new introduction by Toby Litt
Groundbreaking, multi-platform crime novel Far South
Film tie in editions of We Need to Talk about Kevin, I, Anna and The Skin I Inhabit