Algonquin Books

Algonquin Books began in 1983 in a woodshed behind the Chapel Hill home of Louis Rubin, a University of North Carolina professor. His co-founder was Shannon Ravenel, a former student who was already a well-known anthology editor. They set out to publish literary fiction and nonfiction by new writers, many of them Southern and many without agents or New York connections. The name was a pointed joke. It nodded to the Algonquin Round Table, and to the East Coast literary world Rubin wanted to remind of the voices beyond it. Ravenel also edited the yearly anthology New Stories from the South from 1986 to 2006.

Ownership has changed more than once. Workman Publishing bought the press at the end of the 1980s, and Algonquin kept offices in both Chapel Hill and New York. Hachette Book Group acquired Workman in 2021. In the summer of 2024 Algonquin was moved into Little, Brown and Company, where it now sits as an imprint. Its children's line, Algonquin Young Readers, was closed in the same reorganization.

The list is small and selective, and it leans toward novels, memoirs and narrative nonfiction. The best-known titles include Julia Alvarez's In the Time of the Butterflies, Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants, Gabrielle Zevin's The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Purple Hibiscus and Richard Louv's Last Child in the Woods. More recent names include Tayari Jones, Kaitlyn Greenidge and Bora Chung, whose Cursed Bunny shows the list reaching into translation.

Oscar Hokeah's Calling for a Blanket Dance came out from Algonquin in July 2022 as his debut novel. It follows Ever Geimausaddle through the relatives who shape him. The family is part Native American and part Mexican, and the book is about what they owe one another and what they pass down. It fits the house's long habit of backing first novels and voices from outside the usual centres.

Readers can expect character-driven books with a strong sense of place and family, and a willingness to take a chance on writers at the start of their careers. The backlist has stayed in print for decades.