Books published by Galley Beggar Press

It's 1895. Amid laundry and bruises, Rina Pierangeli Faccio gives birth to the child of the man who raped her - and who she has also been forced to marry. Unbroken, she determines to change her name; and her life, alongside it. 1902. Romaine Brooks sails for Capri. She has barely enough money for the ferry, nothing for lunch; her paintbrushes are bald and clotted... But she is sure she can sell a painting - and is fervent in her belief that the island is detached from all fates she has previously suffered.... In 1923, Virginia Woolf writes: I want to make life fuller - and fuller.Sarah Bernhardt - Colette - Eleanora Duse - Lina Poletti - Josephine Baker - Virginia Woolf... these are just a few of the women sharing the pages of a book as fierce as it is luminous. Lush and poetic; furious and funny; in After Sappho, Selby Wynn Schwartz has created a novel that celebrates the women and trailblazers of the past - their constant efforts to push against the boundaries of what it means, and can mean, to be a woman - that also offers hope for our present, and our futures.

A Writer''s Diary is a novel that blends fact and fiction, invention and memoir with joyful creativity and remarkable literary ambition. In it, Toby Litt takes on some of the biggest questions of life and death, not to mention literary as well as human mortality and the steady march of time. At first, A Writer''s Diary appears to be exactly what it claims to be. It is a daily summary of the events in a person called Toby Litt''s life: his thoughts on creating literature, his concerns for his family and the people he teaches, his musings on the various things that catch his attention around his desk and his immediate surroundings... But as it progresses, questions start to arise. Is this fact? Or is it fiction? (And if it''s both, which is which?) Is this a book about quotidian daily routines - one person''s days as they unspool - or is something more going on? Is there something even larger taking shape? ... And so, seemingly by magic, an increasingly urgent narrative starts to build - a

The Book of Desire is the award-winning (and Women''s Prize-shortlisted) writer Meena Kandasamy''s luminous translation of the Kamattu-p-pal, a 2000-year-old song of love and pleasure and the third part of the Thirukkural - one of the most important texts in Tamil literature. Written by the poet Thiruvalluvar, the Kamattu-p-pal section of the Thirukkural focuses on love and female sensuality. It is the most intimate section of this great work - and also, historically, the part that has been most heavily censored. Although hundreds of male translations of the text have been published, it has also only ever been translated by a woman once before. The Book of Desire is Meena''s own feminist reclamation of the Kamattu-p-pal. With her trademark wit, lyricism and passionate insight, she weaves a magic spell: taking the reader on a journey through 250 kurals (short verses), organised under separate headings - ''The Pleasure of Sex'', ''Renouncing Shame'', ''The Delights of Sulking - the result is a fresh, vital, and breath-taking translation. This is a book that fizzes with energy, is full of delight - that conveys powerful messages about female sensuality, agency, and desire. It is a revolution 2000 years in the making.

NATHAN TREEVES IS DEAD, murdered by the Master of Mordew, his remains used to create the powerful occult weapon known as the Tinderbox.His companions are scattered, making for Malarkoi, the city of the Mistress, the Master's enemy. They are hoping to find welcome there, or at least safety. They find neither - and instead become embroiled in a life and death struggle against assassins, demi-gods, and the cunning plans of the Mistress.Only Sirius, Nathan's faithful magical dog, has not forgotten the boy. Bent on revenge, he returns to the shattered remains of Mordew - only to find the city morphed into an impossible mountain, swarming with monsters. He senses something in the Manse at its pinnacle - the Master is there, grieving the loss of his manservant, Bellows - and in the ruins of the slums Sirius finds a power capable of destroying his foe, if only he has the strength to use it.The stage is set for battle, sacrifice, magic and treachery in the stunning sequel to Mordew. ... Welcome to Malarkoi..

English Magic moves through fields and parklands, estates and empty beaches.It lands at Heathrow Airport, takes a taxi to the suburbs, finds emptiness and oppression. It strikes out for the countryside on May Day, to where maypoles whirl and haybales blaze, and where blessings sound like threats.It's in a flat, drags itself out of half sleep... and there's something tapping behind the gas fire...In her debut collection of short stories, Uschi Gatward takes us on a tour of an England simultaneously domestic and wild, familiar and strange, real and imagined. Coupling the past and the present, merging the surreal and the mundane, English Magic is a collection full of humour and warmth, subversion and intoxication. It announces the arrival of a shining new talent.

'There are three kinds of strike I'd recommend: a housework strike, a labour strike, and a sex strike. I can't wait for the first two.'Things Are Against Us is the first collection of essays from Booker Prize-shortlisted Lucy Ellmann. Bold, angry, despairing and very, very funny, these essays cover everything - from matriarchy to environmental catastrophe to Little House on the Prairie. Ellmann calls for a moratorium on air travel, rages against bras, gives Doris Day and Agatha Christie a drubbing, and pleads for sanity in a world that - well, a world that spent four years in the company of Donald Trump, that 'tremendously sick, terrible, nasty, lowly, truly pathetic, reckless, sad, weak, lazy, incompetent, third-rate, clueless, not smart, dumb as a rock, all talk, wacko, zero-chance lying liar'.Things Are Against Us is electric. It's vital. These are essays bursting with energy, and reading them feels like sticking your hand in the mains socket. Lucy Ellmann is the writer we need to guide us through these crazy times.

Elliott is something of a genius. More than that, Elliott is an ideal friend, and to know him is to adore him. But few people do know Elliott, because he is also stuck. He lives in a wheelchair in an orphanage. It''s 1979. Elliott is forced to spend his days in an empty corridor, either gazing out of the window at the birds in a tree or staring into a white wall wherever the Catholic Sisters who run the ward have decided to park him. So when Jim, blind and mute but also headstrong, arrives on the ward and begins to defy the Sisters'' restrictive rules, Elliott finally sees a chance for escape.

FRANCIS PLUG is back! Adjusting to life as a newly published author - interviews and publicity are coming his way, not to mention considerable acclaim. But Francis can''t understand why people think he was writing fiction... He also has other problems - and very little money. Fortunately, he''s handed a lifeline when he lands a job as Writer-in-Residence at the University of Greenwich. The urgent questions build and build - and Francis is in no state to answer them. Will he keep his job? Will he be able to secretly sleep in his office? Will anyone find out that he did a wee in the corridor?

Paul Schreber is a man who wants to go home - but can't. He is a man crippled by an illness he doesn't understand - and sometimes doesn't even know he has. He's no condition to face the worst - but the worst keeps on happening to him. His family is disintegrating, past traumas are coming back to haunt him - and so are those troubling, seemingly laid-to-rest fears of persecution...

Chosen by The Observer as a Fiction Pick for 2016 and described as a 'scintillating novel of ideas', Feeding Time is a debut like no other: a blast of rage against the dying of the light. Dot is losing the will to live. Tristan is sick of emptying bedpans. Cornish spends entire days barricaded in his office. And Ruggles... well. Ruggles is damn well going to escape those Nazi villains and get back to active duty. The mix is all the more combustible since Dot, Tristan, Cornish and Ruggles are all under the same roof - that of a rapidly declining old people's home called Green Oaks. There's going to be an explosion. It's going to be messy. And nobody knows who will pick up the pieces.

Meet Francis Plug, a troubled and often drunk misfit who causes chaos and confusion wherever he goes. And where he most likes to go is to real author events, collecting signatures from the likes of Salman Rushdie, Hilary Mantel, and Eleanor Catton, all the while gleaning advice for a self-help book he is writing with the novice writer in mind. His timely manual promises to be full of sage wisdom and useful tidbits to help ease freshly published novelists into the demands of life in the public eye. Essential reading for anyone with an interest in the literary world - or, in fact, humanity in general. Because while it is a brilliant slapstick comedy, blurring fact, fiction, and absurdity to astonishing effect, How To Be A Public Author by Francis Plug is also a surprising and touching meditation on loneliness and finding a place in the world. Francis, it seems, just doesn't fit in. And as you read, you may wonder if he'll even make it to the end of his own book...