| In ten years, the London publishing house has amassed devoted readers—and four writers with Nobel Prizes.  Illustration by Alex Merto Jacques Testard, the founder of the imprint Fitzcarraldo Editions, says that his mission is to publish work “perceived to be too difficult for the mainstream.” As Rebecca Mead reports, Testard combines an uncommon loyalty to his writers with a willingness to risk failure. “If you come to me with your first book, and I believe in you as an author, and I believe in the writing, and it doesn’t work and it sells five hundred copies, we will still do the next one, and the next one, because it takes time,” he explains. Yet for all his well-honed literary taste, Testard also has the mind of a salesman. “He never stops thinking about how he can sell books,” a prominent London literary agent explains. “You need that strength of belief, but also that stubbornness. And the other thing you need, which he’s got, is an unquenchable belief that he is an excellent publisher.” | 
