Becky Hardie, Deputy Publishing Director at Chatto & Windus, has acquired rights in UK & Commonwealth territories (including Canada) to Kerry Hudson’s powerful new memoir NEWBORN from Juliet Pickering.

NEWBORN is a beautiful, empowering memoir about creating a family in the midst of chaos, and learning new ways to find happiness. It continues the journey Kerry started in her bestselling memoir LOWBORN, illuminating her experiences of becoming a mother, reshaping her future and reclaiming her identity.

Kerry Hudson is celebrated for her emotionally and politically powerful writing about growing up in poverty. Her books and journalism have changed the conversation and touched countless lives.

In this new book she asks: what next, after a childhood like hers? What hope is there of creating a different life for herself, let alone future generations? We see how Kerry found love, what it took to decide to start a family of her own and how fragile every step of the journey towards parenthood was. All along the way, she faces obstacles that would test the strongest foundations, from struggles with fertility to being locked down in a Prague maternity hospital to a marriage in crisis. But over and over again, her love, hope, fight – and determination to break patterns and give her son a different life – win through and light her path.

Kerry Hudson says: ‘As with LOWBORN, this continues the tradition of writing the book I needed to read myself. I know I am one of many who experiences the aftershocks of childhood deprivation and who has complicated or estranged relationships with their own mothers. I didn't have a map for motherhood or a blueprint for building a healthy family but in this book I explore how, with love, laughter and the hardest lessons, it is absolutely possible. Though I never say this, I'm very proud of this book. It's as candid as anything I've ever written and I hope it will, as LOWBORN did, find the readers who truly need it.'

Becky Hardie, Deputy Publishing Director of Chatto & Windus says: ‘Ever since Chatto published her first novel, we’ve watched as Kerry’s beautifully open and honest writing has reached and inspired more and more readers. She truly has changed lives, and the publishing industry. In this new book, she faces perhaps the biggest challenge yet: how to build a family when you don’t have a model to work from. As it turns out, this isn’t perhaps the biggest challenge, and she will need to draw more than ever on the adventurous spirit, resilience, sense of humour and empathy she is so celebrated for.’

Chatto & Windus will publish NEWBORN in hardback in Spring 2024.

About Kerry Hudson

Kerry Hudson was born in Aberdeen. Growing up in a succession of council estates, B&Bs and caravan parks provided her with a keen eye for idiosyncratic behaviour, material for life, and a love of travel.

Her first novel, TONY HOGAN BOUGHT ME AN ICE-CREAM FLOAT BEFORE HE STOLE MY MA (Chatto & Windus), was published in July 2012 and was shortlisted for eight literary prizes, including the Guardian First Book Award and Green Carnation Prize, and won Scottish First Book of the Year. Kerry’s second novel, THIRST, was developed with support from the National Lottery through an Arts Council England grant, and published by Chatto in July 2014 before being shortlisted for the Green Carnation Prize. Her first work of non-fiction, LOWBORN (2019) became a Times bestseller and was hailed as ‘One of the most important books of the year’ by The Guardian.

Published in France as La Couleur de L'eau by Editions Philippe Rey, translated by Florence Lévy-Paolini, THIRST was the winner of prestigious literary prize, Prix Femina Etranger 2015, going on to become a bestseller in France. It was also shortlisted for the European Strega prize in Italy, after being published there as SETE, by Minimum Fax.

Kerry also wrote the script for HANNAH, which was broadcast on BBC Four, starring Emma Fryer, as part of SKINT, a series of seven 15-minute monologues tackling the subject of poverty in the UK. HANNAH tells the story of a mother who is trying to do the best for her child whilst facing homelessness.

Kerry writes for various publications including The New York Times, Guardian, Big Issue and Press and Journal, and is a columnist for The Herald. In 2022 she was nominated for Columnist of the Year in the Regional Press Awards. In 2020, Kerry was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

She currently lives in Glasgow.

Praise for Kerry Hudson

‘A fearless writer, an inspiring woman’ – Jackie Annesley ― The Sunday Times

‘It’s not just Kerry Hudson’s writing that is vibrant, authentic and true, it’s the person herself, it’s where the writing comes from; a wise and generous heart.’ – Kit de Waal

‘There are few writers who use their work to shine a light on working class lives, and fewer still who use their success, as Kerry herself said recently in The Guardian, ‘to send the elevator back down’ to help those waiting in the basement to make their way up. Kerry Hudson is one of those writers who stands out for her empathy and passion and her tireless championing of the excluded.’ – Paul McVeigh

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Becky Hardie, Deputy Publishing Director of Chatto & Windus, bought World English rights in HOW TO HOPE from Juliet Pickering, for publication in 2022 in print, audio and eBook.

We are living in troubled and troubling times and the cumulative effect on our physical and mental well-being is beginning to show. In this new book, prize-winning author and journalist Kerry Hudson sets out to understand why resilience and hope, so often life-saving, can be easily accessed by some but not all of us, and how we can foster these qualities in ourselves and others. Drawing on her own experiences and speaking to a range of experts, including academics and front-line staff, she’ll seek out the best examples of responses to our most common challenges – poverty, housing, work, love and mental health issues – as well as the problems facing the wider world.

From her debut novel TONY HOGAN BOUGHT ME AN ICE-CREAM FLOAT BEFORE HE STOLE MY MA to her memoir LOWBORN (‘should be required reading’ – Sunday Times) and her Pool columns, Kerry Hudson’s work has consistently called to our attention the reality and lasting effects of growing up poor in a broken society. At a time of uncertainty and change, HOW TO HOPE will be a must-read guide to the future.

Kerry Hudson said: ‘Hope and resilience have always been central themes in my books and I couldn't be more thrilled that this new book will allow me to focus fully on these tools which have repeatedly proved life-saving for me. It's also a particular gift to get to write this book at this time, when it feels hope is needed now more than ever.

‘This book also marks a decade of working with a team of brilliant women – my editor Becky Hardie, my literary agent Juliet Pickering and the team at Chatto and Windus and Vintage. They have helped me write the books I dreamed of writing and championed me every step of those ten years. I'm honoured and privileged to be working with this dream team once again.’

Becky Hardie said: ‘This is the perfect next book for Kerry. The response to LOWBORN was overwhelming and she has become a powerful and humane voice in a world that now more than ever needs clear, compassionate and hopeful voices. One of Kerry’s greatest gifts as a writer is getting to the heart of people’s lives and stories, and HOW TO HOPE promises plenty of that, alongside her knack for political and social observation and her own remarkable resilience. We are so proud to be Kerry’s publisher and even discussing the idea of this book gave us all a boost at a very difficult time.’

LOWBORN will be published in paperback on 6th August.

About the author

Kerry Hudson was born in Aberdeen. Her first novel, TONY HOGAN BOUGHT ME AN ICE-CREAM FLOAT BEFORE HE STOLE MY MA, won the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust First Book Award and was shortlisted for an array of prizes including the Guardian First Book Award and the Sky Arts Awards. THIRST, her second novel, won the prestigious prix Femina étranger. LOWBORN is her first work of non-fiction, and her journey has led to a highly successful column for the Pool. She currently lives in Prague.

Praise for Lowborn:

‘It should be required reading… [Hudson is] a fearless writer, an inspiring woman’ — Jackie Annesley, Sunday Times

‘A book that cuts like a knife’ — Jenny Colgan, Spectator

‘If there were any justice in the world, there would be a copy of Hudson's powerful examination of her impoverished upbringing and why it continues to resonate under every politician's Christmas tree’ — Sarah Hughes, i Books of the Year

‘Compelling, fascinating and well-written, undeniably grim but peppered with humour and tenderness... Hudson demonstrates that only by lifting whole communities out of poverty...can we hope to avoid consigning children and young people like her – vulnerable and blameless – to the worst of lives’ — Kit de Waal, Daily Telegraph

‘Lowborn is in part an indictment of a country that claims to still have a functioning welfare state…Most of all, it is a moving portrait of the survival and eventual flourishing of a remarkable spirit’ — John Harris, Guardian