WILLIAM COLLINS TO PUBLISH EDWARD WILSON-LEE’S SHAKESPEARE IN SWAHILILAND

Arabella Pike of William Collins has acquired from Isobel Dixon at Blake Friedmann the UK and Commonwealth rights in a radical, original and breath-taking new book about William Shakespeare – to be published for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death in April 2016. Farrar Straus & Giroux will publish in the USA.

Shakespeare in Swahililand is the first book by Edward Wilson-Lee, a Fellow in English at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. In a narrative that is part travelogue, part memoir, a satire, an ode to Shakespeare and a potted history of East Africa, Wilson-Lee aims to find the holy grail of literary studies – an answer to how and why Shakespeare is acclaimed as a global poet and why his writings should be so universally adored. 

Shakespeare in Swahililand takes Wilson-Lee back to the lands of his childhood (he grew up in Kenya) to dig through mouldering archives to recover the unknown story of the part played by Shakespeare’s works in the region’s history. His story is a literary adventure that throws high culture and the wild together in celebration of Shakespeare’s legacy as a poet of the world.

Wilson-Lee says: ‘Shakespeare in Swahililand began when I discovered that one of the first books printed in Swahili, on the island of Zanzibar in 1867, was a translation of Charles and Mary Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare. Starting from there, I uncovered an extraordinary sequence of stories in which explorers, railway labourers, decadent émigrés, freedom fighters, and pioneering African leaders made Shakespeare their own in this alien land.’ 

Edward Wilson-Lee was raised in Kenya, as part of a family of wildlife conservationists and filmmakers, and now teaches Shakespeare for a living at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he settled after periods of living in the Swiss alps, London, Mexico, New Orleans, New York, and Oxford. He has written and lectured widely on subjects from the Bible to Don Quixote, and is an expert on the early years of the printing press, chivalric romance, and the novel. He has won prestigious research grants from Cambridge University and the British Academy, and is currently reconstructing the greatest library of the Renaissance, which Columbus’ bastard son collected and went mad trying to catalogue.

THE FOLLY published in the US by Archipelago today

Ivan Vladislavić’s THE FOLLY is published in the US today by Archipelago. The novella was originally published twenty years ago, heralding the arrival of a unique and surprising voice. It was read then as an evocative allegory on the rise and fall of apartheid, but continues to strike new chords, its haunting characters speaking strange truths to our world. Umuzi published in South Africa and And Other Stories publish in the UK in November. 

Mr and Mrs Malgas are going quietly about their lives when an eccentric squatter named Nieuwenhuizen arrives on the vacant plot next door, with a scheme to build an elaborate mansion. Slowly but surely the stranger's charm and persuasive language draws Malgas into "the plan". Grimly humorous and playfully serious, Ivan Vladislavić’s classic first novel is a comic and philosophical masterpiece.

On first publication THE FOLLY was hailed by André Brink as being ‘In the tradition of Elias Canetti, a tour de force of the imagination’ and its new edition has drawn much pre-publication praise:

‘THE FOLLY is mysterious, lyrical and wickedly funny — a masterful novel about loving and fearing your neighbor. Ivan Vladislavić is one of the most significant writers working in English today. Everyone should read him.’ — Katie Kitamura

‘The rise and fall of ‘the plan’ at the heart of this potent short novel is as brilliant as it is unsettling. Vladislavić writes with spring-loaded precision about universal dreams and local desolation. A fable for the ages, a parable for our time.’ — Laird Hunt

‘Vladislavić’s cryptic, haunting tale echoes Jorge Luis Borges and David Lynch, drawing readers into its strange depths.’ — Publishers Weekly

'Memorable work that never underplays the unpleasant societal tensions that lie below the surface. … THE FOLLY plays out like a berserk blend of fairy tales, the plays of Samuel Beckett, and the films of Jacques Tati.’ – Tobias Carroll, Electric Lit

Ivan Vladislavić will be in the US to promote THE FOLLY and to receive his Windham Campbell Prize later this month. At a ceremony at Yale University he will be awarded one of this year’s nine $150,000 prizes for Fiction, alongside writers Teju Cole, Helon Habila, Geoff Dyer and Edmund de Waal, among others.

Ivan Vladislavić is the award-winning, critically-acclaimed author of a prestigious body of literary work.  Published in ten international markets, Ivan lives in Johannesburg, where he is a Distinguished Professor in Creative Writing at the University of the Witwatersrand. He has won and been shortlisted for South Africa’s most prestigious prizes.  His work is included in the GRANTA BOOK OF THE AFRICAN SHORT STORY and Sylph Editions published A LABOUR OF MOLES in the Cahiers Series. His novel DOUBLE NEGATIVE has just been published in Germany by A1 and Osburg have  acquired German rights to THE EXPLODED VIEW.

Visit Ivan's website.

Blake Friedmann authors at the Wigtown Book Festival

The Wigtown Book Festival begins on 23rd September and it’s the perfect chance to catch four Blake Friedmann authors discussing their work. The festival takes place over ten days and welcomes over 100 writers to Wigtown, this year including Frank Gardner, Val McDermid and Phill Jupitus.

Pippa Goldschmidt will be taking part in two different events at the festival. On Sunday 27th September she will be running a creative writing workshop with a difference at her Dark Skies experience, free for under 25s. She will also be talking with Marek Kukula about I AM BECAUSE YOU ARE, an anthology she recently co-edited, and the legacy of Einstein’s achievement.

On Monday 28th September Helen Walmsley-Johnson will be talking about her manifesto for middle-age, THE INVISIBLE WOMAN. Tickets are available here.

On Sunday 4th October, Gregory Norminton will be talking about French classic THE LITTLE PRINCE by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry as part of the Children’s Festival. Buy tickets here.

Janice Galloway will also be talking about her short story collection JELLYFISH, published by Freight Books, at the McNeillie tent – you can buy tickets here.

For more information about Wigtown Book Festival, you can visit their website.

KERRY HUDSON’S THIRST LONGLISTED FOR PRESTIGIOUS PRIX FEMINA

After being picked by the major UK retailer WH Smith as a Fresh Talent, Kerry Hudson's LA COULEUR DE L'EAU (published in the UK as THIRST) is flying high in France. The novel has been longlisted for the prestigious French prize Prix Femina: the jury of the Prix Femina unveiled a first selection of 15 French and 17 foreign novels for 2015, and THIRST got its spot in the foreign novels section. The final winners will be awarded on November 4.

Since its publication in France by Philippe Rey at the end of August, THIRST has been receiving staggering reviews and has been picked out across the media as a highlight of the 2015 ‘Rentree Litteraire’. The first chapter of the novel appeared in July on Le Bien Public, and the novel was reviewed and mentioned by the main French cultural papers, from Le Parisienne to La Montagne.

 Liberation says: ‘With her beautiful first novel last year, Kerry Hudson is back on top form with THIRST’

 Femme Actuelle says: ‘A wonderful book, as brilliant as it is moving’

 THIRST is a contemporary love story from Scottish First Book Award winner Kerry Hudson. It was published in 2014 by Chatto, and translated in French and Italian.

 Alena and Dave are both on the run from disaster, and meet during a London heatwave to begin a love affair as dark, joyful and frenetic as the city itself. Dave, who has built a carefully controlled world of self-denial and isolation, is drawn to Alena's passion for life, while Alena discovers that sex can be more than a transaction and that love and safety are priceless commodities. But a relationship founded on secrets is easily shattered, and when Alena's ex-lover arrives, threatening to expose her, Alena flees. By the time Dave overcomes his mistrust about Alena and her past, and follows her into the bitter Russian winter, he can only hope he's not too late to convince her that just as spring will come, second and even third chances can always be found. THIRST is a heart-breaking romance of almost unbearable fragility based in contemporary East London and rural Russia.

Born in Aberdeen, Kerry Hudson grew up in a succession of council estates, B&Bs and caravan parks which provided her with a keen eye for idiosyncratic behaviour, material for life, and a love of travel. She was chosen as a Bookseller Rising Star 2014 for her work on the WoMentoring project. She currently divides her writing time and affections between Hackney and Hanoi, and is working on her third novel.

Praise for THIRST:

‘Explores the lives of people not generally considered fit for literature and does so with wit and a shrewdness that makes Hudson's subjects zing from the page.’ – Guardian

 'Tremendously affecting… impressively unostentatious' – Claire Allfree, The Metro

 ‘Heart-wrenching without being maudlin, THIRST is a novel about the scraps of hope that people find when they’re completely out of options… Hudson has an eye for detail and her meticulous research shows without bogging down the narrative. There are villains, but no obvious heroes. It’s a bleak outlook, but Hudson makes it beautiful.’ – Kaite Welsh, The Independent  

KERRY HUDSON’S THIRST IS FRESH TALENT PICK AT WH SMITH

THIRST by Kerry Hudson was chosen by WH Smith as one of the titles for Fresh Talent promotion, launched in February with the aims to promote new and emerging writers.

The retailer said it had been working closely with publishers to curate the list, which he expects will capture the attention of commuters and travellers. W H Smith Travel fiction buyer Matt Bates said: “Our Fresh Talent promotion is going from strength to strength, showcasing the very best in new and emerging writing talent. We have worked closely with major publishing houses as well as independents to curate what is undoubtedly a very strong selection.”

THIRST is a contemporary love story from Scottish First Book Award winner Kerry Hudson. It has been published in 2014 by Chatto, and translated in French and Italian.

Alena and Dave are both on the run from disaster, and meet during a London heatwave to begin a love affair as dark, joyful and frenetic as the city itself. Dave, who has built a carefully controlled world of self-denial and isolation, is drawn to Alena's passion for life, while Alena discovers that sex can be more than a transaction and that love and safety are priceless commodities. But a relationship founded on secrets is easily shattered, and when Alena's ex-lover arrives, threatening to expose her, Alena flees. By the time Dave overcomes his mistrust about Alena and her past, and follows her into the bitter Russian winter, he can only hope he's not too late to convince her that just as spring will come, second and even third chances can always be found. THIRST is a heart-breaking romance of almost unbearable fragility based in contemporary East London and rural Russia.

Born in Aberdeen, Kerry Hudson grew up in a succession of council estates, B&Bs and caravan parks which provided her with a keen eye for idiosyncratic behaviour, material for life, and a love of travel. She was chosen as a Bookseller Rising Star 2014 for her work on the WoMentoring project. She currently divides her writing time and affections between Hackney and Hanoi, and is working on her third novel.

Praise for THIRST:

‘Explores the lives of people not generally considered fit for literature and does so with wit and a shrewdness that makes Hudson's subjects zing from the page.’ – Guardian

'Tremendously affecting… impressively unostentatious' – Claire Allfree, The Metro

‘Heart-wrenching without being maudlin, THIRST is a novel about the scraps of hope that people find when they’re completely out of options… Hudson has an eye for detail and her meticulous research shows without bogging down the narrative. There are villains, but no obvious heroes. It’s a bleak outlook, but Hudson makes it beautiful.’ – Kaite Welsh, The Independent