Dedalus is proud to be a member of the Arts Council Fiction Group formed in the autumn of 2010. All the publishers in the group receive regular Arts Council funding and demonstrate how effective Arts Council funding has been in widening the range of fiction available to readers in England. The publishers in the group have very different lists but all share a commitment to artistic excellence, finding and nurturing the writers of the future and providing an alternative to commercial fiction.

Collectively we have won a lot of literary prizes and accolades and have made an important contribution to the creative economy. We are an Arts Council success story and our books make the case every day for Arts Council England’s investment in literary fiction. We have formed ourselves into a group to help promote what we do and argue the case for public investment in literary fiction. There will be presently a link to the websites of all the publishers in the group and each month the group will recommend the work of a publisher in the group.

May's featured publisher is Dedalus and the recommended title is The Arabian Nightmare by Robert Irwin. Published in Dedalus's first list in 1983 it has never been out of print and has been translated into 20 languages and has received worldwide acclaim.

‘Robert Irwin is indeed particularly brilliant. He takes the story-within-a-story technique of the Arab storyteller a stage further, so that a tangle of dreams and imaginings becomes part of the narrative fabric. The prose is discriminating and, beauty of all beauties, the book is constantly entertaining.

Hilary Bailey in The Guardian

Arts Council Fiction Group members' web sites:

Arcadia Books | Ayebia | Dedalus Books | Flambard Press | Peepal Tree Press | Tindal Street Press