Romalyn Ante’s second poetry collection AGIMAT to be published by Chatto & Windus

We are delighted to announce that AGIMAT, the second poetry collection by prize-winning poet Romalyn Ante, will be published by Chatto and Windus in hardback and eBook in the UK on 5th September 2024. World English Language rights were acquired from Isobel Dixon by Chatto & Windus poetry editor, Sarah Howe.

Speaking on the announcement of Chatto’s first poetry list under her stewardship, Sarah Howe said: ‘I could not be more proud of this daring, resonant, beautiful set of books, the first under my editorship at Chatto. It has been a joy working with our poets, existing and new, to bring these important works to the world. I look forward to the day readers will hold these stunning objects in their hands, and be changed by them.’

Romalyn Ante’s debut collection, ANTIEMETIC FOR HOMESICKNESS (also published by Chatto & Windus) was shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize and longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. Romalyn has previously won the Poetry London Prize and the Manchester Poetry Prize and AGIMAT has already been chosen as a Poetry Book Society Autumn Recommendation and garnered praise from fellow poets and early readers (see more below).

this charms the buried light of stars –

this deflects bullets – this unblooms a war –

In some Filipino clans, parents pass down to each child an AGIMAT, an amulet, in the hope its magic will protect and empower them. In a world of daily pain and loss, Romalyn Ante’s second collection asks: how do we keep safe what we hold most dear?

At the dawn of the pandemic, the poet – a practising nurse in the NHS – is thrown onto the frontlines of the war against COVID-19. Past conflicts swim into the now. When she falls in love with a man of Japanese heritage, it forces a reckoning with her family’s suffering under Japan’s brutal wartime occupation of the Philippines. Elsewhere, we meet the irrepressible goddess Mebuyan, who, in Philippine myth, nurses the spirits of children in the underworld. Here, she watches over young people in crisis – a girl who can’t stop cutting herself, a teenager who has leapt from a railway viaduct.

These are poems of strength and solace; they question what it means to fight, and what it takes to heal.

Romalyn is currently developing her first novel, THE LEFT-BEHIND CHILD, a lyrical and vivid depiction of childhood and rupture inspired by her and her mother’s stories of leaving the Philippines to work and care for others in the United Kingdom.

Photo credit: S Chadawong

About Romalyn Ante

Romalyn Ante FRSL is a British-Filipino poet, essayist, and editor. She grew up in the Philippines and migrated to her second home, Wolverhampton, in 2005.

She is co-founding editor of harana poetry, a magazine for poets who write in English as a second or parallel language, and the founder of Tsaá with Roma, an online interview series with poets and other creatives. She was awarded the Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowship and she currently sits as an editorial board member for Poetry London magazine. 

She is the first East-Asian to win the Poetry London Prize (2018) and the Manchester Poetry Prize (2017). She also won the Creative Future Literary Award 2017.

Apart from being a writer, she also works as a specialist nurse practitioner. Her debut poetry collection, ANTIEMETIC FOR HOMESICKNESS, is published by Chatto & Windus and was an Irish Times Best Poetry Book of 2020, an Observer Poetry Book of the Month and a Poetry School Poetry Book of the Year 2020. It was also a National Poetry Day UK Recommended Read and was shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize and longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize.

 Praise for AGIMAT

‘Ante is an alchemical wonder of a poet: unparalleled in her image-making, raw to both historical and contemporary damage and rich in cultures. Utterly original, AGIMAT is itself a talisman – a fiery binding of pain and a message of love to the wounded and lost. Keep these poems with you as I will – always.’ – Fiona Benson

‘If translation is always physical, often joyous work – the act of carrying meaning across the chasms separating languages – then AGIMAT is about the daily embodied acts involved in this labour. To live in translation is to be estranged. Yet the joy of translation comes from this very estrangement. Romalyn Ante makes us feel this, as estrangement transforms into its own vibrant space of joy. Ante’s irrepressible inquiries into translation create a colourful linguistic sanctuary.’ – Jason Allen-Paisant

‘Romalyn Ante’s mesmeric new collection is deeply rooted in the dualities of life, cultural identity, and the profound interplay of personal and communal experience. Vivid, lyrical, and always surprising, it is a testament to those who navigate the complex legacies of history toward healing and resilience. It is both a balm and a call to action, reminding us of the transformative power of bearing witness.’ – Nathan Filer

‘Romalyn Ante’s first collection introduced us to a voice both vibrant and thoughtful. This collection grows out from this – now coming with a feeling of added power and forcefulness. This is a special book – both urgent and beautiful.’ – Niall Campbell

‘With precision, deftness, and at times playfulness, AGIMAT weaves in mythical and modern imageries, the universal with the intimate. The result is a powerful and hopeful collection, filled with heart and beauty, that illuminates us to the many forms that caring and healing can take.’ – Cecile Pin

Praise for Romalyn Ante

‘Captivating, playful, moving, witty and agile... an unforced poet with a lightness of touch and fortitude’ – The Guardian

‘Romalyn Ante is a poet to fall in love with’ – Liz Berry

‘Ante’s poems are like embers, pared back to a slow-burning emotional core’ – Times Literary Supplement

Vist Romalyn’s website.

Follow Romalyn on X (previously Twitter) and Instagram. 

BFLA Open Week: Tax Forms

Written by Tabitha Topping

For any author it’s obviously incredibly exciting when a translation rights deal is done, however there is an aspect of these sort of deals that is rarely discussed… tax forms.

For the uninitiated, many countries have double taxation agreements with one another which means if a resident of one country is expecting income from another and they have the relevant documentation, they can avoid paying tax twice. Sounds simple, right? You’d be surprised…

At the beginning of each calendar year we have to assess which of our clients are most likely to receive translation rights income and from where. Are we in the middle of negotiating a Spanish deal for Author A? Has Author B been selling well in France, and are we expecting a sizeable royalty payment for them? Often it can be difficult to predict, but once we have a list (and obviously this list is not comprehensive – for example, we often make translation rights deals later in the year we were not expecting to in January), we can then send the relevant instructions to the relevant clients.

These differ from country to country. Some countries have specific forms that need to be filled out by the author and then stamped by their tax authority, while a simple certificate of residence will suffice for others.

We always advise that authors apply for tax forms as soon as they can. It can take months for tax forms to be returned to clients and publishers cannot make payment without them. Furthermore, tax forms may only be used for the year they are issued (Germany is the sole exception to this) so if an author’s form only arrives in November and misses the publisher’s last pay run of the year, the author will have to start the process all over again in January. This often means that large swathes of income is held up, which can be enormously frustrating for publishers and authors alike.

As an agency we are legally not allowed to complete tax forms on behalf of our clients, so our role is to mediate between client and publisher/co-agent. We share the relevant documentation with our clients and then send periodic reminders to them about completing the forms in good time.

Authors are obviously free to go without the tax forms and subject their income to the full withholding tax (and sometimes a tax form only reduces the tax by such a negligible amount it’s not worth going through the whole arduous process), but given the squeezing of author incomes in recent years we usually recommend that authors apply for tax forms.

So, in essence tax forms are great! They allow authors to keep more of their advance and/or royalties, which usually means that an author can afford to write more – yay! Unfortunately the tax forms process is labor-intensive and time consuming… but as agents we will be there for every step of the journey and do our best to make the process as easy and pain-free as we can. So, if you’re an author and receive an email saying ‘it’s time to apply for your [insert country]’s tax forms’, please don’t panic!

Alan Park’s MAY GOD FORGIVE nominated for France’s Grand Prix de Littérature Policière

Alan Parks has been nominated for the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, one of France’s most prestigious awards in Crime Fiction, in the Best Foreign Novel category for his novel MAY GOD FORGIVE – published in France as JOLI MOIS DE MAI, in a translation by Olivier Deparis.

The winners of the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière will be announced in September, with the recipient following in the footsteps of the likes of Dennis Lehane, Ken Bruen, Ian Rankin, and Blake Friedmann’s own Deon Meyer, who won in 2003 for his novel DEAD BEFORE DYING.

This latest shortlisting continues Alan’s exceptional run of acclaim for his books on both sides of the English Channel: last year, he won the Prix Mystère De La Critique for BOBBY MARCH WILL LIVE FOREVER, the third book in the Harry McCoy series and, for the second year running, the Prix Rivages des Libraires; closer to home, MAY GOD FORGIVE was awarded Bloody Scotland’s top honour, the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year in 2022.

MAY GOD FORGIVE is the fifth novel in Alan’s Harry McCoy series, all of which are published in France by Editions Payots-Rivages. The sixth McCoy title, TO DIE IN JUNE, was published by Canongate in the UK in June 2023 and in the US from Europa in June 2024. The Harry McCoy series is published further in translation in Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and Sweden. Film/TV rights are also under option. Alan’s new series GUNNER, a trilogy of World War II-set thrillers, was recently announced, the first instalment of which will be published in 2025.

Congratulations Alan!

About MAY GOD FORGIVE

Glasgow is a city in mourning. An arson attack has left five dead. Tempers are frayed and sentiments running high.

When three youths are charged the city goes wild. A crowd gathers outside the courthouse but as the police drive the young men to prison, their van is rammed by a truck, and the men are grabbed and bundled into a car. The next day, the body of one of them is dumped in the city centre. A note has been sent to the newspapers: one down, two to go.

Detective Harry McCoy has twenty-four hours to find the kidnapped boys before they all turn up dead, and it is going to mean taking down some of Glasgow's most powerful to do it…

Image: Euan Robertson

About Alan Parks

Alan Parks worked in the music industry for over twenty years before turning to crime writing.

His debut BLOODY JANUARY was shortlisted for the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, FEBRUARY’S SON was nominated for an Edgar Award, BOBBY MARCH WILL LIVE FOREVER won the Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original, the Prix Mystère de la Critique in the foreign fiction category, and was shortlisted for the Macavity Award for Best Mystery Novel and THE APRIL DEAD was shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year. The fifth Harry McCoy book, MAY GOD FORGIVE, was published in April 2022 and won the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year 2022. It was shortlisted for the 2023 CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award and longlisted for the 2023 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. Most recently, TO DIE IN JUNE, the sixth entry in the series, was published by Canongate in 2023. The Harry McCoy series is optioned for television.

Alan was born in Scotland and attended The University of Glasgow where he was awarded a M.A. in Moral Philosophy. He still lives and works in the city as well as spending time in London.

Praise for Alan Parks

‘One of the great Scottish crime writers’ – The Times

‘Tipped to become an enduring classic of tartan noir.’ – Sunday Post

‘Dark and gritty… Gripping.’ – Crime Monthly

‘A brilliant series’ – Sunday Times Crime Club

‘Bloody and brilliant’ – Louise Welsh (on BLOODY JANUARY)

‘Pitch-black Tartan noir: bleak, but with an emotional heart that's hard to ignore.’ – Daily Mail (on FEBRUARY’S SON)

‘Manoeuvering through the mean streets of Glasgow, the morally ambiguous, deeply flawed McCoy makes an ideal antihero.’ – Publishers Weekly (on BOBBY MARCH WILL LIVE FOREVER, Edgar Prize Winner 2022)

‘Altogether one of the best police thrillers of the last few years.’ – Morning Star (on THE APRIL DEAD)

Visit Alan’s website

Follow Alan on Twitter

BFLA Open Week: Translation Rights – Beginnings

Written by James Pusey and Nicole Etherington

So, you’ve hooked an agent, and said agent has just submitted your debut novel to UK and US editors. At what stage does the translation rights department get involved, and in what capacity?

First off, it’s likely that the TR department will have been one of the early readers of your novel – we’re often asked to assess new manuscripts that an agent is about to send out in the UK, in order to offer an opinion about its potential for translation. We’d be looking for comparable titles that have seen success abroad and discussing amongst ourselves as to who we might target, and which markets seem likeliest. Each market has its own trends, periods of boom and bust, but there’s also a diversity of tastes within each one.

If we have a very strong feeling that the novel would be up a particular editor’s street, we might send it to them early, before a UK/US deal has been struck. The reality, however, is that the wheels of acquisition often turn slower than we’d like, and to give the novel the very best chances of success we’ll need some help.

By sharing your manuscript with trusted book scouts and our co-agents (our eyes and ears on the ground in capital cities around the world), we can ensure that the novel is considered by a range of the right editors. Co-operating with third parties in this way offers the novel greater visibility and gets people talking. Publishing remains a ‘people’ industry and fostering positive relationships with these contacts is priceless.

Timing is everything and it’s often the case that we won’t achieve proper lift-off in translation until the book has been sold in the UK. Given the vast amount of time, effort and expense that editing, translating and production entails, it’s important that overseas editors have access to copy-edited and proofread manuscripts, possibly cover art and design, and the boost that UK publication and its attendant publicity can give. This is not to say that it’s impossible to sell a title abroad that doesn’t already have a UK publisher, but it’s the exception that proves the rule.

The greatest joy, and biggest challenge, of our work in rights comes from successfully matching up a book with its perfect overseas editor. The first translation deal we make for a book is always a cause of excitemen, and can have a knock-on effect in other markets.

These are the beginnings, then, but, in fact, our engagement with the novel doesn’t end at this stage, or indeed at all. First publication, second (paperback) publication, reviews, prize listings, strong sales figures in the UK or elsewhere, all provide the opportunity for us to continue attempting to place the novel with suitable overseas partners, giving your novel a second, third, or hopefully twentieth life!