Kerry Hudson’s new memoir NEWBORN to be published by Chatto & Windus

Image: Nick Tucker

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

Follow Kerry on Twitter

Chatto to publish ground-breaking new memoir from Kerry Hudson, LOWBORN

Becky Hardie, Deputy Publishing Director at Chatto & Windus, has acquired UK and Commonwealth (ex. Canada) rights to LOWBORN: Growing Up, Getting Away and Returning to Britain’s Poorest Towns by award-winning novelist Kerry Hudson. Rights were bought from Juliet Pickering at Blake Friedman as part of a two book deal.

LOWBORN is a deeply personal book which will see Hudson return to the towns she grew up in around the UK: she lived in seven places before the age of 15, in a succession of council estates and B&Bs for the homeless, where she attended nine primary schools and five secondary schools. In returning to these places, she hopes to uncover long buried truths about her own life but also seeks to illuminate what life is really like for Britain’s poorest today. Hudson brings her own experiences and her authentic voice to one of the most urgent and pressing issues of our times.  

Kerry Hudson will document her journey around the country for the Pool where she will be a regular contributor in the lead up to publication of Lowborn in January 2019. Her first piece will run on Wednesday 25 October.  You can also follow her on Twitter: @thatkerryhudson.

Kerry Hudson comments:  ‘To write a book like this, and begin to try and answer questions I’ve had since my youth, is truly something I never imagined might happen. Alongside my own story, Lowborn will also tell those of so many in the UK who are often overlooked, exploring subjects that I feel desperately need to be highlighted. I’m incredibly happy to work once again with Chatto & Windus and with an editor as brilliant and astute as Becky knowing they feel as passionately as I do that these are stories that need to be given voice.’

Becky Hardie comments: ‘Using her own troubled childhood as a map, Kerry Hudson’s Lowborn will take a hard look at what it means to be poor in post-Brexit Britain. We are so proud to be Kerry’s publisher – she is a force for good in our world – and Lowborn will be a crucially important, timely and affecting book. We need this book, just as we need Kerry Hudson.’

Kerry Hudson was born in Aberdeen. Her first novel, Tony Hogan Bought Me An Ice-Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma (Chatto & Windus, 2012) was the winner of the Scottish First Book Award and was shortlisted for the Southbank Sky Arts Literature Award, Guardian First Book Award, Green Carnation Prize, the Author’s Club First Novel Prize and the Polari First Book Award. Kerry’s second novel, Thirst (Chatto & Windus, 2014), won France’s most prestigious award for foreign fiction the Prix Femina Etranger.

Kerry founded The WoMentoring Project and has written for Grazia, Guardian Review, Observer New Review, Metro and YOU magazine. She has represented the British Council in South Korea, mentored with IdeasTap Inspires and TLC, teaches for the Arvon Foundation and was commissioned by the Writers’ Centre Norwich to give a provocation on diversity as part of their ‘National Conversation’ series.

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