George Makana Clark’s extraordinary second novel THE WRECKERS has been acquired by Europa Editions as their lead title for Autumn 2026. Millie Guille and Michael Reynolds bought World English Rights from Isobel Dixon at Blake Friedmann Literary Agency, and WF Howes and Recorded Books will simultaneously publish in audiobook.

Described as One Hundred Years of Solitude meets The Count of Monte Cristo, the O. Henry Prize-winning Makana Clark’s polyphonic narrative is a centuries-spanning tour de force and darkly funny revenge drama. Centred on the Last Will and Testament of Garoto Bárbaro de Castro, a mysterious document which is both a list of thirteen bequests and a record of Garoto’s life story, The Wreckers moves between Angola, Cuba, and Louisiana’s ‘Angola’ prison to examine the scars of the transatlantic slave trade, and the consequences of prolonged civil war.

THE WRECKERS will be published in the UK on 10 September 2026, shortly followed by the North American edition on 22 September.

‘THE WRECKERS is a wild and brutal story, populated by stubborn oddsters who press on in the face of their abandonment,’ said George. ‘I’m so grateful that my agent Isobel Dixon and Millie Guille and Michael Reynolds of Europa connected with it as they did, encouraging me to keep chasing down this sprawling, seven-headed-dragon of a novel. Europa is a dream publisher for this book, Millie a super-savvy editor and I can’t wait for it to be published!”

‘THE WRECKERS is incredibly ambitious and addictively brilliant, with the plots and subplots spilling and growing from each other like nesting dolls,’ added Millie Guille on behalf of Europa. ‘With echoes of Bolaño and Marquez, Makana Clark has written a modern classic.’

Isobel Dixon added: ‘George’s THE RAW MAN was a wonder, and I’m so thrilled that he’s now brought us the great gift of this raucous, capacious, powerful and startling novel. It feels right that Millie and Michael’s huge enthusiasm for THE WRECKERS is carrying it out into the world on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond. Readers are in for quite a journey.’

About George Makana Clark

George Makana Clark grew up in Zimbabwe and now lives in Portugal. Winner of an O. Henry Award and shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing, his work is included in The New Granta Book of the African Short Story. His debut novel, THE RAW MAN, was published by Jonathan Cape in 2011.

Praise for THE RAW MAN

‘The wonderful, poetic voice, at once fantastic and realistic, stands out from contemporary African literature.’ – Alain Mabanckou

‘An extraordinary novel, and a work of rare conception, bringing together, within one individual, the painfully conflicted history of southern Africa.’ – Brian Chikwava

‘Mythic and dark and oracular.’ – Adam Johnson

Manu Joseph and George Makana Clark are both appearing at the Edinburgh Book Festival this year, and their debut novels - Manu's SERIOUS MEN and George's THE RAW MAN - are both up for the Newton First Book Award, for which readers can vote here.

Manu Joseph's event at the Edinburgh Festival will take place on Thursday 25 August (7-8:15pm). Please click here for more information on the event and here for more information about the author.

George Makana Clark's event at the Edinburgh Festival will take place on Monday 15 August (3.30-4.30pm) and he will also be reading at the Amnesty International Imprisoned Writers series right afterwards. Please click here for more information on the event and here for more information about the author.

PRAISE for Manu Joseph

'One of the strongest debuts of 2010, this bittersweet Mumbai tale of high minds and low plots [is] more Lucky Jim than White Tiger…. Touching, hilarious, this collision between the Mumbai of stars and of mud rediscovers a deep Indian vein of humane and sophisticated comedy.' -- Independent

'Manu Joseph shows how petty jealousies in India can motivate and divide as surely as major societal differences. His skills as a writer are tremendous - he invests even the most ordinary interactions with keenly observed human quirks, and almost every sentence is a joy to read for its ingeniously constructed language. This is a compellingly entertaining novel - witty, subversive, extraordinarily perceptive, deliciously wicked.' -- Manil Suri, author of THE DEATH OF VISHNU

'The finest comic novelists know that a small world can illuminate a culture and an age. With this funny-sad debut, Joseph does just that for surging, fractious India.' -- Boyd Tonkin, Independent

'Manu Joseph's satirical tale of an ostensibly new India still in thrall to its caste-ridden and sexist traditions is so much more than a mere comic caper.' -- Catherine Taylor, The Guardian

'Manu Joseph's first novel elegantly describes collisions with an unyielding status quo, ably counterpointing the frustrations of the powerless with the unfulfilling realities of power. With this astute comedy of manners he makes a convincing bid for his own recognition as a novelist of serious talent, the latest addition to a roster of Indian writers who are creating fine literary art from their country's fearsome contradictions.' -- Peter Carty, Independent

PRAISE for George Makana Clark

'Once the reader has gone past the first chapter - no, the first page - his chances of putting down the book are small: a story-ghost prowls the halls of this book, dragging the reader through its 12 doors, never letting go until the tale is told. It oscillates between realism, fantasy, folk tale, mythology and history...The main character...is only a quarter black...but his soul is 100% African, and a sense of his mystical connection to the land is one of the things that lends THE RAW MAN its power. He is a blood reader, an art inherited from his Xhosa grandmother...Makana Clark seems to be saying that the true essence of a man, his true story, is more than skin deep; it resides in the blood...Makana Clark has been compared to Coetzee and Conrad...His publishers claim "THE RAW MAN is a revelatory work of fiction, and one that is impossible to forget." It is.' -- Helon Habila, The Guardian

'THE RAW MAN is an extraordinary novel, and a work of rare conception, bringing together, within one individual, the painfully conflicted history of southern Africa.' -- Brian Chikwava, author of HARARE NORTH

'George Makana Clark's THE RAW MAN is a doozy of a debut, unapologetically ambitious and suffused with a rare emotional intensity…Makana Clark creates a narrative voice of hallucinatory power and endless playfulness, even in the midst of horror.' -- Booktrust

'We are taken on this journey in chapters that could stand alone as stories. These smaller tales seem to reflect a cultural heritage, passing on tradition and history through folklore imbued with symbolism and the supernatural. This folklore expands outwards, stories enclosing stories, until it is finally encapsulated in something that we could call a novel. The book therefore symbolises not only the struggle for the identity of a single man, but also of a people faced with the collision between Western colonial traditions and their own cultural heritage. [H]is story builds such a complex web with its own symbols…At any rate, this is a fantastically imaginative and enjoyable book to read.' -- Ben Carson, Think Africa Press