US book deal with Norton

August 23, 2014 By in North America, Post-world Tags: , , , , , , , , 28 Comments

Celebration near Ground Zero

The last month or so has been a strange time for me. On the one hand, there was the euphoria of getting to the end of the stack of edits I showed you on the penultimate draft of Reading the World and knowing that the book I’d been writing on and off for 18 months was done. But on the other, there was the knowledge that this meant I was entering a whole new phase of the publishing process with challenges of its own.

For me, finding out whether the book would get a publisher in the US was top of the pile. With the manuscript finished, Sarah Levitt at the Zoë Pagnamenta Agency in New York (who often works with my agent Caroline Hardman in the UK) was able to swing into action, pitching the project to editors Stateside.

A nervous wait ensued. I tried not to think about it too much. I reminded myself that it’s rare for a British debut author to get taken on in the US, where publishers have their pick of tens of thousands of homegrown wordsmiths. And I consoled myself with the thought that, whatever happened, my book was going to be published in the UK in early 2015 by Harvill Secker/Random House – and that was far more than I had ever dreamed would happen when I first embarked on the madcap adventure of reading a book from every country in the world in a year. A deal in the US would be the icing on the cake, I told myself.

But the truth was, no matter how sanguine I tried to be about it, I cared very much about whether or not the book would come out in America. Having spent the first few weeks of my Year of Reading the World in the States (the picture at the top, in case you haven’t spotted it, was taken on the pier at Coney Island), I feel that the project has a particular connection with the place – several of the stories I read in those early stages were picked off the shelves at McNally Jackson. What’s more, given that over a third of total views of this blog have come from the US, I was keen to share the book with the nation that has been this venture’s most enthusiastic supporter.

So you can imagine my excitement when Sarah Levitt got in touch this week to confirm that we had a deal with editor Elisabeth Kerr at W.W. Norton & Co. The fact that the publisher is Norton and that the book will be coming out under its Liveright imprint (or trade name) makes the news all the sweeter – relaunched in 2012, Liveright sets out to publish ‘outstanding works that define and redefine our culture’. Its historic list is a literary hall of fame, with William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Bertrand Russell, Sigmund Freud and T.S. Eliot accounting for just some of its impressive names.

I was particularly delighted to discover that one of Liveright’s first publications after its relaunch was George Orwell’s Diaries. Orwell has always been a bit of a hero of mine and, like me, he started out as a sub-editor on British newspapers (although, much as I might like to think otherwise, the similarities between us probably end there).

The book is set to come out in the US in summer 2015 (probably in May, but I’ll let you know once the date is confirmed). However, if I thought my writing work on it was done, it turns out I can think again: Norton is publishing an anthology called Reading the World soon, so Elisabeth and I will need to think of another title for the US edition. Any suggestions gratefully received…

Photo by Jens Schott Knudsen

28 responses

  1. Very exciting news indeed! Congratulations! I hope this whets the appetite for more translated fiction in the US. The fact that it’s Liveright and Norton is the icing on the cake: I still remember my Norton Anthology of Poetry.

    Reply

  7. Congratulations! I’ve been following your blog for a while and I must say this is great news. Not only because I find your blog both substantial and approachable, a relatively rare combination in the blogosphere but because this is encouraging for all of us who may have started out on our blogs with one plan and then discovered, after seeing more folks like you, that it might be okay to imagine a bigger horizon. All the best for the books in both countries! Keep us posted.

    Reply

    • Thanks Luca. It’s a nice idea, but the book is actually quite different to the blog – whereas you can get the book by book accounts on the blog from the reviews on the list, the book looks at the big questions about literature and the world. Hmmn, I’ll keep thinking…

      Reply

  12. Congratulations, this is WONDERFUL news! I heard your interview on NPR months ago and thought yours was a genius idea. My only regret is that Penguin hadn’t yet released my novel (The Mango Bride) so that you couldn’t have read it as well. Must get a copy of your book when it is released next year!

    Reply

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