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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Ella Creamer

‘People still do not want women to succeed or be equal. While that is true, you need Virago’: 50 years of the warrior publisher

Poking holes in a smothering blanket … Spare Rib founders and members of the original Virago team Marsha Rowe (left) and Rosie Boycott, at the Spare Rib offices in 1972.
Poking holes in a smothering blanket … Spare Rib founders and members of the original Virago team Marsha Rowe (left) and Rosie Boycott, at the Spare Rib offices in 1972. Photograph: Sydney O’Meara/Getty Images

It was the early 70s, and in a tiny flat above a synagogue in Chelsea, London, decorated with lime-green paint, red tiles and an alternative cover for Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch on the wall, a group of women sat talking around a dining table.

The attic bedsit soon became the first office of the feminist publisher Virago, which turns 50 this month. It has published more than 4,000 titles and over 1,000 authors, including Sarah Waters, Pat Barker and Monica Ali, and brought the likes of Margaret Atwood and Maya Angelou to British readers.

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