us rights list

US RIGHTS LIST
For additional information, please contact:
Andrea Joyce, Rights Director: Andrea.Joyce@canongate.co.uk
Canongate Books
14 High Street
Edinburgh EH1 1TE
UK
Tel: +44 (0) 131 557 5111
Fax: +44 (0) 131 557 5211
www.canongate.tv
Visit our Rights page on Canongate.tv for our latest news
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CONTENTS
Fiction
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5
Page 6
Page 7
Page 8
Page 9
Page 10
Page 11
Page 12
Page 13
Animals Emma Jane Unsworth
Blackbird Tom Wright
Lolito Ben Brooks
The King Kader Abdolah
My Biggest Lie Luke Brown
Gone Are The Leaves Anne Donovan
Night Boat Alan Spence
Safe as Houses Simone van der Vlugt
Endgame Ahmet Altan
The Song of King Gesar Alai
A Bright Moon for Fools Jasper Gibson
Non-fiction
Page 15
Page 16
Page 17
Page 18
Spies Like Us Daniel Soar
The Edible Atlas Mina Holland
The Canterbury Copy Patience Agbabi
Independence Alasdair Gray
FICTION
Animals
3
Emma Jane Unsworth
Says Caitlin Moran: “I wish I had written this book... Withnail with girls.”
Animals is a refreshingly honest and wickedly funny tale of
friendship and love. Laura is engaged to be married
to Jim. He is thoughtful, caring and successful.
Their wedding is just weeks away. Perfect.
Except Laura’s riotous best friend and
flatmate Tyler isn’t convinced. In fact
Tyler will do everything she can
not to lose her best friend to
married bliss.
With the contemporary savvy of
Lena Dunham’s Girls and the
glorious quotable wit of Withnail
and I, Animals is hilarious,
honest, raw and thoroughly
moving. It is about
knowing when it’s time to
grow up, and recognising what
you have to leave behind if you do.
UK Publication: May 2014
Rights Held: World English
Rights Sold: HarperCollins (Canada)
Other Rights: Clare Conville, Conville
& Walsh
Emma Jane Unsworth lives in Manchester.
She is a journalist and won the Betty Trask Award
for her novel Hungry, The Stars and Everything,
(Hidden Gem, 2011).
4
Blackbird
Tom Wright
“Dr. Deborah Serach Gold died on the cross sometime during a night
of freezing rain in late October of my last year at Three. It probably
wasn’t the worst thing that happened to her that day,
but it had been over two decades in the making . . .”
Blackbird is a scorching detective thriller about a serial killer on
the loose in contemporary Texas. Leading the investigations is one
Detective Jim Beaudry, formerly known as Biscuit, no stranger to
the dark side of life. Wrapping up the case will force Jim into the
deepest recesses of his own history, even the parts he’d rather forget.
Praise for What Dies in Summer:
‘A beautifully written and deeply engaging study of loss and
innocence, suffused with chilling dread. A haunting novel, a
captivating debut, I loved it’ SJ Watson
‘Terrific . . . Reminds me of To Kill a Mockingbird’ Ian Rankin
‘Menacing, punchy, tense and as close and sticky as a long
summer in the Deep South’ Scotsman
‘Practically flawless’ Sunday Times
‘Beautifully written . . . this raw, powerful story, with its undertow
of dread, heralds the arrival of a major new writer’ Daily Mail
UK Publication: July 2014
Rights held: World
Option Publishers: ANZ (Text), France (Presses
de la Cité), Italy (Piemme), Netherlands
(Ambo|Anthos), Portugal (Editora Bertrand),
Spain (Duomo), Spain Catalan (Empúries)
Other Rights: Victoria Hobbs, A. M. Heath
Tom Wright lives in Texas and is a practicing
clinical psychotherapist. Blackbird is his second
novel. His first novel What Dies in Summer, also
published by Canongate, was shortlisted for the
CWA Silver Dagger in 2012.
SEE BACKLIST FOR WHAT DIES IN SUMMER
Lolito
Ben Brooks
Lock up your mothers . . .
5
‘Lolito is the funniest, most
horrible book I’ve read in years.
I was blown away’
Nick Cave
She’s online.
‘I booked a hotel,’ I say. ‘Near
Marble Arch.’
‘That sounds great, hon. I can’t
wait to see you.’
‘Yeah. Me too.’
‘I’m vaguely nervous.’
‘Don’t be.’
Do be. I’m a child.
Lolito is a love story about a fifteen
year-old boy who meets a middle-aged
woman on the internet. When his longterm girlfriend and first love, Alice,
betrays him at a house party, Etgar goes
looking for cyber-solace in the arms of
Macy, a stunning but bored housewife
he meets online. What could possibly
go wrong . . . ?
Hilarious, fearless and utterly
outrageous, Lolito is a truly twentyfirst century love story.
‘Magnetising, funny and disturbing, his
prose is infectious and highly
addictive. I loved it’ Tim Key
‘Funny, witty and addictive’ List
‘This is a totally convincing portrait of being a wayward teenager now, that only a
teenager could have written’ Dazed & Confused
‘Both warm and uncompromising, Lolito will be as entertaining for young adults as it is
educational for older readers. And if some aspects of the world Brooks inhabits seem
alarming, I can’t think of a writer I would rather have as my guide’ Guardian
UK Publication: August 2013
Rights Held: World
Rights Sold: Hungary (Agave), Italy
(ISBN), Spain (Blackie Books), Spain
Catalan (Empúries)
Other Rights: Jon Elek, A. P. Watt at
United Agents
Ben Brooks was born in 1992 and lives in Gloucestershire.
He is also the author of five other books: Fences, An Island of
Fifty, The Kasahara School of Nihilism, Upward Coast & Sadie
and Grow Up. Brooks’ work has been longlisted for the Dylan
Thomas Prize, nominated for a Pushcart Prize and published
in the Dzanc Best of the Web anthology. His most recent novel
Grow Up was published by Canongate.
SEE BACKLIST FOR GROW UP
6
The
King
Kader Abdolah
An extraordinary novel about
the making of modern Iran.
Kader Abdolah’s The King,
already a bestseller in Europe,
is now published in English
for the first time
At the opening of the nineteenth century, Shah
Naser is the King of Persia. He is regarded as the
shadow of God on earth. From his palace in
Tehran, he rules a country at a turning point in
history. The world beyond Persia is changing
rapidly, and the forces driving western
industrialisation cannot be held at bay. At the
same time, there are threats at the country’s
borders, from the Russians to the North and from
the British in their Indian colony to the east.
As grand vizier, Mirza Kabir is the most
important policy advisor to the Shah. He wants
to take Persia into the modern world, by building
factories, constructing roads and railways
and offering the impover­ished, illiterate citizens
new prospects in the form of work or education.
But the Shah’s mother is bitterly opposed to the
vizier’s politics.
The King paints an absorbing picture of the
political, historical and social turmoil of early
modern-day Iran. It also offers unforgettable
descriptions of the Shah’s personal life and the
almost medieval, enchanted life at his court,
based around insanely opulent palaces, vast
treasures and extensive harems, reminiscent of
the fairytale world of One Thousand and One
Nights. The King confirms Kader Abdolah as
one of the world’s most engaging storytellers.
Praise for The House of the Mosque:
‘Enchanting . . . Abdolah’s juxtapositions - the spiritual and the earthly, myth and reality give the story a powerful irony’ Independent
‘Abdolah’s is a powerful voice’ The Times Saturday Review
‘Captivating and distinctive ... a measured, beguiling and potent example of literary
resistance’ TLS
UK Publication:
January 2014
Rights Held:
World English
Other Rights: De
Geus
SEE BACKLIST FOR
THE HOUSE OF THE
MOSQUE
Kader Abdolah (a pen name created in memoriam to friends who died
under persecution by the current Iranian regime) was born in Iran in 1954.
While a student of physics in Tehran, he joined a secret leftist party that
fought against the dictatorship of the shah and the subsequent dictatorship
of the ayatollahs. Abdolah wrote for an illegal journal and clandestinely
published two books in Iran. In 1988, at the invitation of the United Nations,
he arrived in the Netherlands as a political refugee. In 2008 Kader Abdolah
was honoured with the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.
7
My
Biggest Lie
Luke Brown
The Big Lebowski meets High Fidelity
‘There was a time not long ago when I
thought that lying was the most natural
thing in the world. It was fun. It was
addictive. And I forgot, temporarily, what
was true and what was false. Or it was
simply that I preferred the false.
It was then that I was found out.’
Liam has it all. His career glitters before
him whilst his beautiful girlfriend waits for
him at home. Then in one calamitous night
he loses everything – his job, his girlfriend,
his best friend and nearly his life.
Leaving London behind, he heads to
Buenos Aires in the hope of regaining
control and winning back the love of his
life. But in the world’s most sensual city
can Liam prevent his lies from running
away with him?
My Biggest Lie is a moving comedy about
father figures, second chances and knowing
when it’s time to tell the truth.
‘I loved this book! My Biggest Lie is wickedly funny
and razor sharp but beneath the world weariness is a
warmth and tenderness that is hard to resist’
Catherine O’Flynn
UK Publication: April 2014
Rights Held: World
Rights Sold: Italy (Mondadori)
Other Rights: Peter Straus, RCW
Luke Brown grew up near Blackpool,
Lancashire, and now lives in Birmingham.
My Biggest Lie is his first novel.
8
Gone Are
The Leaves
Anne Donovan
The new novel by the Orange Prize-shortlisted author of Buddha Da
Feilamort can recall very little before
he arrived at the grand home of the
Scottish Laird and his French wife.
Feilamort’s voice is one of the finest in
the land, and he believes it will keep him
safe, in the service of the Laird as a choir
boy. The Lady of the house has a special
attachment to Feilamort and is willing
to go to extreme lengths to preserve the
boy’s voice. Knowing what he stands to
lose, Feilamort and his closest friend,
a young seamstress called Deirdre, are
catapulted into early adulthood with
unimaginable consequences.
Full of wonder, intrigue, faith and love
Gone Are The Leaves is the enchanting
story of one young boy’s lost past and
his uncertain future.
Praise for Buddha Da:
‘An enchanting novel in which ordinary lives are illuminated with extraordinary
charm’ Daily Telegraph
‘Buddha Da reads like a Scottish Roddy Doyle, dealing with potentially heavy
issues with an addictive blend of pathos and humour’ Observer
Praise for Being Emily:
‘A tender, lyrical coming-of-age narrative, its people drawn with love in that
singing Glasgow voice that is Donovan’s signature’ Guardian
‘Donovan writes with bittersweet aplomb’ The Times
UK Publication: April 2014
Rights Held: World
Option publishers: Brazil (Planeta),
Germany (btb)
Other Rights: Gill Coleridge, RCW
Anne Donovan is the author of the prize-winning novel
Buddha Da, Being Emily and the short-story collection,
Hieroglyphics. Buddha Da was shortlisted for the Orange Prize,
the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Scottish Book of
the Year Award, and was nominated for the International
IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. It received a Scottish Arts
Council Award and won the Le Prince Maurice Award in
Mauritius in 2004. Anne has also written for radio and the
stage and has been working on the screenplay for the film
of Buddha Da. She lives in Glasgow.
SEE BACKLIST FOR BUDDHA DA AND BEING EMILY
Night Boat
9
Alan Spence
My childhood name was Iwajiro, and I
was eight years old when I first entered
the gates of hell . . .
One night in eighteenth-century Japan, at
the hour of the Ox, a young boy named
Iwajiro sits in a state of pure concentration.
At the foot of Mount Fuji, behind screen
walls and amidst curls of incense smoke
Iwajiro chants the Tenjin Sutra, an act of
devotion learned from his beloved mother.
On the side of the same mountain, twenty
years on, he will sit in perfect stillness as
the summit erupts, spitting fire and molten
rock onto the land around him. This is not
the first time he has seen hell.
This man will become Hakuin, one of the
greatest teachers in the history of Zen. His
quest for truth will call on him to defy his
father, to face death, to find love and to
lose it. He will ask, what is the sound of
one hand clapping? And he will master his
greatest fear. Night Boat is the story of his
tremendous life.
‘If you’ve ever wondered about the sound of one-hand clapping, this is the novel for
you. If you haven’t, there is still plenty to enjoy in the poetic writing, rich in historical detail and the drama of the battle between a man’s inner and outer lives’ The Times
‘He is one of the best Scottish writers of our time. A remarkable, and remarkably fine,
novel’ Scotsman
‘With none of the apparatus or artifice of a historical novel, Night Boat is written with a winning simplicity’ Herald
‘Night Boat becomes a sympathetic, thoughtful chronicle of how we grow and change, how we deal with what makes us suffer, and how our creativity can play in. Spence’s elegant prose, subtle wit and clear passion for his subject make it a rewarding undertaking’ Scotland on Sunday
UK Publication: August 2013
Rights held: World
Other Rights: Elizabeth Sheinkman,
WME
Alan Spence is an award-winning poet, playwright,
novelist and short story writer. His awards include the
Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Award, the Macallan Short
Story Prize and the McVitie Prize for Scottish Writer of the
Year. He is Professor in Creative Writing at the University of
Aberdeen.
SEE BACKLIST FOR THE PURE LAND, CLEAR LIGHT, SEASONS OF THE
HEART AND GLASGOW ZEN
Safe as Houses
4
Simone van der Vlugt
Her instinct is to run for home. It’s the last thing she should do.
A single mother stands in the garden
of her isolated house, hanging out the
washing, when suddenly a man appears.
When he grabs at her, Lisa runs, but she
is not quick enough.
Suddenly Lisa and her young daughter
find themselves held hostage in their
own home. In the following hours and
days, Lisa will do the unimaginable to
protect her child - all the time
wondering why the only witness has
not come back to help her. . .
Simmering with tension and lust for
revenge, Safe as Houses is a terrifying
story of every woman’s worst fears.
‘The author builds a great
atmosphere of tension as the truth
slowly, horrifyingly, comes into focus’
Sunday Telegraph on Shadow Sister
‘Hard to put down. Thrilling’
Cosmopolitan on The Reunion
‘A gripping psychological thriller which breathes new life into that old cliché
‘unputdownable’’ Waterstone’s Books Quarterly on The Reunion
UK Publication: July 2013
Rights held: World English
Other Rights: Laura Susijn, The Susijn
Agency
Simone van der Vlugt is one of Holland’s bestselling
crime writers. She has written eight thrillers to date,
including The Reunion and Shadow Sister, which have sold
more than one million copies in the Netherlands. The
prize-winning Safe as Houses is the first to be published by
Canongate. Simone van der Vlugt lives with her husband
and two children in Alkmaar in the Netherlands.
Endgame
11
Ahmet Altan
‘Great author, great literature:
Ahmet Altan reopens the wounds of love and history’
Le Monde Diplomatique
Endgame is a literary mystery, not so much a who-done-it
as a who-done-it-to.
The novel takes place in a town nestled amidst oleander and
olive groves where low hills lead to the coast and the air is
full of the sweet smell of jasmine and honeysuckle. The
book’s protagonist, a novelist, comes to the town to write a
murder mystery. We learn on the first page of the book that
he has killed someone. Yet the identity of his victim will only
be revealed at the end of the novel, 400 pages later . . .
UK Publication: March 2015
Rights held: World excluding
Turkey and Greece
Rights Sold: Canada
(HarperCollins), Norway
(Gyldendal)
Other Rights: Levent Yilmaz
Ahmet Altan was born in 1950 and is one of Turkey’s most significant authors and
journalists. He became a journalist at 24 working in many positions, from reporter to
editor-in-chief. He was fired from Milliyet, a best-selling, mainstream daily newspaper, for
a column piece entitled ‘Atakurd’ in which he defended the basic rights of the Kurdish
people. Until recently he was the editor-in-chief of Taraf, an alternative, anti-militarist daily
newspaper he co-founded.
His first novel, Four Seasons of Autumn, published when he was 27, won the Grand Award
of the Akademi Publishing House. His second novel Trace on the Water (1985) was banned
due to obscenity. Dangerous Tales (1996) became a bestseller and sold over 200 thousand
copies. Like a Sword Wound (1998) won the Yunus Nadi Novel Prize, its sales surpassing
500 thousand copies. His novels have been translated into many languages though up till
now never into English.
In 2009, along with Roberto Saviano, he was awarded the prestigious Prize for the
Freedom and Future of the Media by the Media Foundation of the Sparkasse Leipzig.
In 2011, he received the International Hrant Dink Award, an award that has been
presented since 2009 by the Hrant Dink Foundation to people who work for a world free
of discrimination, racism and violence.
12
The Song of
King Gesar
Alai
Translated from the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin
The first English translation of the Founding Myth of Tibet
‘A thrilling, beautiful and moving epic, reminding us again of the timeless
and exhilarating magic of pure story-telling. It opens up a world previously
unknown to us, a foreign and yet strangely familiar world’ Tan Twan Eng
In this extraordinary retelling by award-winning
ethnic Tibetan writer Alai, The Song of King Gesar
is brilliantly brought to life. It is one of the world’s
great epics, as significant for Tibetans as the Odyssey
and Iliad for the ancient Greeks, and as the
Ramayana and Mahabarata in India.
Set partly in ancient Tibetan society, where evil
spirits mingle with the lives of humans, and partly in
modern day Tibet, The Song of King Gesar tells of two
lives inextricably entwined. Gesar, the youngest and
bravest of the gods, has been sent down to the human
world to defeat the demons that plague the lives of
ordinary people and threaten to enslave them. Jigmed
is a young shepherd, who is visited by dreams of
Gesar, of gods and of ancient battles while he sleeps.
So begins an epic journey for both the shepherd and
the king. Gesar will unite the nation of Tibet under
his reign. And Jigmed will learn to see his troubled
country with new eyes, and as the storyteller chosen
by the gods, must face his own destiny.
Praise for Red Poppies:
‘Panoramic and intimate at the same time’
New York Times
‘Lavish . . . A magnificent journey to another time and place [and] a scathing observation
of power, brutality, and corruption’ Philadelphia Inquirer
‘Shrewdly satiric and wonderfully entertaining’ Booklist
‘A compelling portrait of an unfamiliar place on the cusp of modernity: a promising new
writer’ Kirkus
UK Publication: November 2013
Rights Held: World
Rights Sold: China (Chong Qing),
Korea (Munhakdonge), Taiwan
(Linking Publishing)
Other Rights: Chong Qing
Alai was born in 1959 in Sichuan Province, Rgyalrong of
Tibetan descent. As well as his critically acclaimed collections of
poetry, short stories and essays, he has written a number
of novels, including the internationally bestselling Red Poppies:
A Novel of Tibet, which was shortlisted for the 2002 Kiriyama
Prize.
A Bright Moon
for Fools
13
Jasper Gibson
‘Have you sold your soul to the devil?’ asked
the boy. ‘Everybody has sold their soul to
the devil,’ sighed Christmas. ‘That’s why you can’t get a decent bloody price.’
Harry Christmas - part Jim Royale, part
Ignatius P. Reilly, part Oliver Reed –
is on the run. Unable to cope with the
death of his wife, bouncing from one bad
decision to the next, a terrifying assault
by the son of a woman he’s conned makes
up his mind to leave the country.
On a mission to track down his wife’s
ancestral village, Christmas arrives in
Venezuela certain that his fortunes are
about to improve. He’s dead wrong. Soon
out of money and luck, he is forced into
yet more deceit – with devastating
consequences for those he has fooled.
Lost, drunk and lurching across rural
Venezuela, Christmas reaches the point
of breakdown. He wakes up in a village
at the end of the world. He is hanging by
one leg from a tree.
Inspired by the mighty Lola Rosa, he tries
to crawl out of his spiritual abyss and find
a way to live amongst these fishermen and
farmers – but love isn’t easy when you are a
career liar still married to the dead. As the
real trouble begins, can redemption survive?
A comic novel that is as funny as it is
heart-breaking, Jasper Gibson’s debut
marks the arrival of a bold new voice in
British fiction.
UK Publication: May 2013
Rights Held: World
Other Rights: Inside The
Dog Press
‘Few first novels are as bold or as haunting
as this‘ Spectator
‘Very funny indeed’ Guardian
‘A terrific first novel starring a magnificently
disastrous Christmas’ Daily Mail
‘Very funny, very unpleasant and very
touching at the same time’ Michael Palin
‘Relentlessly funny, blazingly paced, a
pinball ride of a novel propelled by the
dreams and schemes of one of the most
memorable anti-heroes in contemporary
fiction’ Chloe Aridjis
Jasper Gibson is from Parwich, Derbyshire. He has
worked a variety of jobs including as a cacao farmer and
English teacher in Venezuela. He now lives in Sussex.
NON-FICTION
Spies Like Us
15
Daniel Soar
This is a book about a secret. The secret is this: communication is a con.
Whenever we get in touch with someone – whether by phone, email or
advanced instant messaging protocol – we think we’re sharing news,
or saying what we feel, or somehow just making contact. We hope that
the message will be private. But privacy is – and always has been –
an illusion.
Both timely and timeless, Spies Like Us is about the past, present and
future of surveillance. With an up-to-date account of the Snowden
leaks and all they revealed, the book puts these recent events in the
context of espionage’s long history.
Divided into three sections – ‘Control’, ‘Intercept’ and ‘Analyse’,
Spies Like Us looks at the efforts that have always been made to
own the means of communication. From Google and Facebook
stretching back to the Thurn und Taxis family (couriers of The Holy
Roman Empire), the book reveals the pattern by which private
corporations would battle with the state for control of the post and
later the phone networks, telegraph and the internet. ‘Intercept’ looks
at official spies and shows that what has been happening courtesy of
the NSA is part of a long game that has been played since the
17th Century. In ‘Analyse’, Soar looks at ‘big data’ and the way
interception can lead to mistakes as in the infamous treason trial of
Alfred Dreyfus.
Spies Like Us is a ground-breaking look at the secret history of
communication, and how surveillance will shape our future.
UK Publication: March 2015
Rights Held: World
Rights Sold: ANZ (Text), Spain
(Debate / Random House Mondadori)
Other Rights: Peter Straus, RCW
For many years Daniel Soar, a senior editor at London Review
of Books, has been interested in and writing about surveillance in
its many guises. One of his pieces about Google in the LRB is
one of the ten most read pieces the LRB has published and was
included in The Best Business Writing 2012. Spies Like Us is his
first book.
16
The Edible Atlas
Around the World in Thirty-Nine Cuisines
Mina Holland
The Edible Atlas is a book for intrepid
food lovers. Mina Holland explains
what and why people eat as they do
across the world, demystifying the
flavours, ingredients, techniques and
dishes at the heart of thirty-nine
different cuisines. With fully adaptable
recipes to suit beginners and confident
cooks alike, learn to recreate dishes
from across the globe – from a South
Indian Coconut Fish Curry to
Scandinavian pickled cucumbers,
from a spicy Levantine Muhammara
to a Danish Dream Cake, from an
unbeatable Spanish Tortilla de Patatas
to the ultimate Caribbean Jerk
Chicken.
Weaving snippets of anecdote,
history and literature in with recipes
and words of wisdom from some of
the world’s most seasoned food
experts – such as Yotam Ottolenghi,
Jacob Kenedy, José Pizarro and
Giorgio Locatelli – The Edible Atlas
is as comfortable in the kitchen as
it is at your bedside.
‘A fascinating project, telling some fantastic stories about a broad
range of cuisines. Mina’s style is engaging and illuminating and the
food cries to be cooked’ Yotam Ottolenghi
UK Publication: March 2014
Rights Held: World
Other Rights: Jon Elek, A. P. Watt
at United Agents
Mina Holland is Contributing Editor at the Observer
Food Monthly Magazine and a freelance journalist who
writes about food and drink, books and travel. She has
travelled extensively, and living (and eating) abroad
has taught her what and why people eat as they do.
The Edible Atlas is her first book.
Telling Tales
17
Patience Agbabi
Tabard Inn to Canterb’ry Cathedral,
Poet pilgrims competing for free picks,
Chaucer Tales, track by track, it’s the remix
From below-the-belt base to the topnotch;
I won’t stop all the clocks with a stopwatch
when the tales overrun, run offensive,
or run clean out of steam, they’re authentic
and we’re keeping it real, reminisce this:
Chaucer Tales were an unfinished business.
In Telling Tales award-winning poet Patience Agbabi presents an inspired 21st
century version of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales retelling all of the stories, from
the Miller’s Tale to the Wife of Bath’s, in her own critically acclaimed poetic
style.
Celebrating Chaucer’s Middle-English masterwork for its performance element
as well as its poetry and pilgrims, Agbabi’s newest collection is utterly unique.
Boisterous, funky, foul-mouthed, sublimely lyrical and bursting at the seams,
Telling Tales takes one of Britain’s most significant works of poetry and brings
it right up to date.
‘Anyone giving a poetic echo to The Canterbury Tales needs exceptional
imagination, human warmth and rhythmical energy; without them, the echo
is doomed to fade. But Patience Agbabi has all these things and more: a
completely appropriate sense of variety, fun, seriousness and good humour.
Stirred all together, they make Telling Tales a compelling collection of
story-portraits, at once contemporary and time-honoured. It’s a wonderful
achievement’ Andrew Motion
‘A rising star’ Observer
‘Agbabi is a fine poet, and her linguistic wit carries satirical fire’ Daily Telegraph
UK Publication: April 2014
Rights Held: World
Other Rights: Patience Agbabi
Patience Agbabi was born in London in 1965 to Nigerian
parents, but grew up in rural Wales. She studied at Oxford and
Sussex Universities. Featured on Channel 4 and renowned on
the performance circuit, her debut collection R.A.W. won the
1997 Excelle Literary Award for poetry. Two further
collections, Transformatrix (2000) and Bloodshot Monochrome (2008),
were published by Canongate to great critical acclaim. Her poems
have appeared on radio and television all over the world.
SEE BACKLIST FOR TRANSFORMATRIX AND BLOODSHOT MONOCHROME
18
Independence
Alasdair Gray
A polemic on the case for Scottish
independence by the writer, artist, thinker
and cultural icon, Alasdair Gray.
Gray argues that a truly independent Scotland
will only ever exist when people in every
Scottish home, school, croft, farm, workshop,
factory, island, glen, town and city feel that
they too are at the centre of the world.
Independence asks whether widespread social
welfare is more possible in small nations than
big ones. It describes the many differences
between Scotland and England and examines
the people who choose to live north of the
border. It shows Scotland’s relevance to the rest
of the world and it attempts to conjure a vision
of how a Scots parliament might benefit the
people of this small but dynamic nation. And
it tells us how democracy is failing wherever
people stop believing that their vote will make
a difference.
The referendum on Scottish Independence is
set to take place in September 2014.
Praise for Lanark:
‘Remarkable . . . Lanark is a work of loving and vivid imagination, yielding copious riches’
Times Literary Supplement
‘A quite extraordinary achievement, the most remarkable thing in Scottish fiction for a very
long time. It has changed the landscape’ Scotsman
‘A great writer, perhaps the greatest writer living in Britain today’ Will Self
UK Publication: June 2014
Rights Held: World
Other Rights: Jenny Brown,
Jenny Brown Associates
Since 1981, when Alasdair Gray's first novel (Lanark: A Life in Four
Books) was published by Canongate, he has published twenty books,
most of them novels and short stories. In his own words, ‘Alasdair Gray
is a fat, spectacled, balding, increasingly old Glaswegian pedestrian who
has mainly lived by writing and designing books, most of them fiction’.
SEE BACKLIST FOR LANARK, UNLIKELY STORIES, MOSTLY, THE ENDS OF OUR
TETHERS, 1982, JANINE, A HISTORY MAKER, A LIFE IN PICTURES AND EVERY
SHORT STORY 1951-2012
Other recent acquisitions
& forthcoming publications
Fiction
S. by JJ Abrams with Doug Dorst (UK & Commonwealth excl. Canada)
Other Rights: Cathryn Summerhayes/Jay Mandel, WME/ October 2013
The Automobile Club of Egypt by Alaa al Aswany (UK & Commonwealth excl. Canada, ANZ & India)
Other Rights: Charles Buchan, Wylie Agency / February 2015
A Slight Trick of the Mind by Mitch Cullin (UK & Commonwealth excl. Canada)
Other Rights: Jessica Craig, United Agent / May 2014
The Pure Gold Baby by Margaret Drabble (World excluding North America)
Other Rights: Jim Gill, United Agents / November 2013
The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henriquez (UK & Commonwealth excl. Canada)
Other Rights: Caspian Dennis, Abner Stein / June 2014
Twilight of the Gods of the Steppe by Ismail Kadare (World English excl. Canada)
Other Rights: Tracy Bohan, Wylie Agency / August 2014
Redeployment by Phil Klay (UK & Commonwealth excl. Canada)
Other Rights: Cathryn Summerhayes/Eric Simonoff, WME / March 2014
The First True Lie by Marina Mander (World English)
Other Rights: Clementina Liuzzi, Clementina Liuzzi Literary Agency / February 2014
A Gift From Nessus, Remedy is None, Walking Wounded and Weekend by William McIlvanney (World)
Other Rights: Jenny Brown, Jenny Brown Associates / January 2014
The World Made Straight by Ron Rash (UK and Commonwealth excl. Canada)
Other Rights: Devon Mazzone, Farrar, Straus and Giroux / January 2015
The Seed Collectors by Scarlett Thomas (World excl. US)
Other Rights: David Miller, Rogers, Coleridge & White / March 2015
The Lost Time Accidents by John Wray (UK & Commonwealth excl. Canada)
Other Rights: Tracy Bohan, Wylie Agency / February 2015
Non-Fiction
Alexandrian Pages by Alaa al Aswany (UK & Commonwealth excl. Canada, ANZ & India)
Other Rights: Charles Buchan, Wylie Agency / March 2016
A Girl and Her Greens by April Bloomfield (UK & Commonwealth excl. Canada)
Other Rights: Cullen Stanley, Janklow & Nesbit USA / April 2015
Omnium Gatherum by Philip Delves Broughton (UK and Commonwealth excl. Canada)
Other Rights: Tina Bennet, WME / June 2015
Capital: A Portrait of 21st Century Delhi by Rana Dasgupta (UK & Commonwealth excl. Canada & India)
Other Rights: Charles Buchan, Wylie Agency / March 2014
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes : And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty (UK &
Commonwealth excl. Canada)
Other Rights: Elisabeth Kerr, W.W. Norton / February 2015
Another Great Day at Sea by Geoff Dyer (UK and Commonwealth excl. Canada)
Other Rights: Luke Ingram, Wylie Agency / May 2014
Livewired : How the Brain Reconfigures Itself and Why It Matters by David Eagleman (UK &
Commonwealth excl. Canada)
Other Rights: James Pullen, Wylie Agency / May 2014
On Time by Simon Garfield (World)
Other Rights: Rosemary Scoular, United Agents / September 2015
Sous Chef: 24 Hours in the Kitchen by Michael Gibney (UK and Commonwealth excl. Canada)
Other Rights: Karolina Sutton, Curtis Brown / April 2014
Untitled Memoir by Terry Gilliam (World)
Other Rights: Jon Elek, A. P. Watt at United Agents / September 2014
Five Came Back: Five Legendary Film Directors and the Second World War by Mark Harris (UK &
Commonwealth excl. Canada)
Other Rights: Luke Ingram, Wylie Agency / February 2014
The Lonely City by Olivia Laing (World excluding North America)
Other Rights: Claire Conrad, Janklow & Nesbit UK / November 2015
Burn and Rave: A Life by Jerry Lee Lewis with Rick Bragg (UK & Commonwealth excl. Canada)
Other Rights: Caspian Dennis, Abner Stein / February 2015
Creating Freedom by Raoul Martinez (World)
Other Rights: Canongate / February 2015
The Vampyre Family: Passion, Envy and the Curse of Byron by Andrew McConnell Stott (World
English)
Other Rights: Ben Mason, Conville & Walsh / November 2013
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat (UK & Commonwealth excl. Canada)
Other Rights: Felicity Blunt, Curtis Brown / May 2015
Just a Minute by Nicholas Parsons (World English)
Other Rights: Gordon Wise, Curtis Brown / September 2014
The Telling Room: A Tale of Passion, Revenge and the World’s Finest Cheese by Michael Paterniti
(UK and Commonwealth excl. Canada)
Other Rights: Gordon Wise, Curtis Brown / January 2014
The Age of Democracy 1989-2011: 22 Years that Changed the World by Simon Reid-Henry (World)
Other Rights: Georgina Capel, Capel Land / November 2014
Untitled Memoir by James Rhodes (World)
Other Rights: Denis Blais, Denis Blais Management / August 2014
The Guantanamo Memoirs by Mohamedou Ould Slahi (UK and Commonwealth excl. Canada)
Other Rights: Caspian Dennis, Abner Stein / September 2014
Trying Not to Try: The Ancient Chinese Art and Modern Science of Spontaneity by Edward
Slingerland (UK & Commonwealth excl. Canada)
Other Rights: Max Brockman, Brockman, Inc. / April 2014
Game Over: Underground in the World of Cheaters, Sex Addicts, Polyamorists, Swingers and the
Commitment-Challenged by Neil Strauss (UK & Commonwealth excl. Canada)
Other Rights: Carolyn Bodkin, HarperCollins US / March 2014
Letters of Note: Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience by Shaun Usher (World English)
Other Rights: Unbound / October 2013
A Childhood Memoir by Ray Winstone (World)
Other Rights: Michael Wiggs, CAM / October 2014
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