cASPAr henderSon
A Journey in SeArch of Modern MArvelS
Granta
Portobello Books July - December 2017
Contents GRANTA
PORTOBELLO
Do Not Say We Have Nothing 6 Certainty 6 Dogs at the Perimeter 6 Estates 8 City Secrets: Florence & Venice 8 Love of Country 9 The Patriots 9 The Story of a Brief Marriage 10 Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? 10 To the Back of Beyond 11 The Secret Twenties 12 The Mother of All Questions 13 A Revolution of Feeling 14 Islander 15 Eat the Buddha 16 The Written World 17 Homeland 18 A New Map of Wonders 19 Multiple Choice 20 The Diary of a Gulag Prison Guard 20
Such Small Hands 22 Go, Went, Gone 23 The White Book 24 The History Thieves 25 Swallowing Mercury 25
GRANTA MAGAZINE
Granta 140: The Mind Granta 141: Canada
Selling Territories
Rights sl tn us
28 29
Serial rights Translation rights US rights
ncr nanz nnz nsa nea nsin nmyl ngr nind
Formats hb Hardback tpb Trade Paperback pb Paperback ome Open Market Edition
No Canada rights No Australia or New Zealand rights No New Zealand rights No South Africa rights No East Africa rights No Singapore rights No Malaysia rights No Greece rights No India rights
Recent bestsellers
the vegetarian – 978 1 84627 603 3 £8.99
do not say we have nothing 978 1 78378 266 6 £12.99
the nakano thrift shop 978 1 84627 600 2 £12.99
negroland 978 1 78378 339 7 £8.99
the way to the spring 978 1 78378 310 6 £14.99
the patriots 978 1 78378 181 2 £12.99
a florence diary 978 1 78378 316 8 £9.99
under the udala trees 978 1 84708 838 3 £8.99
the case against sugar 978 184627 637 8 £14.99
city of thorns 978 1 84627 589 0 £9.99
the tidal zone 978 1 78378 308 3 £8.99
human acts 978 1 84627 597 5 £8.99
Granta Books July - December 2017
Do Not Say We Have Nothing Madeleine Thien Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2016 Winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize 2016
April
Winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award 2016
An epic novel of China’s revolutionary history told through the stories of two musical families, from the 1940s to the present day. Published in B-format alongside a stunning relaunch of Madeleine Thien’s backlist. New to Granta
The backlist: do not say we have nothing fiction £8.99 April B format 198 × 129mm PB 480pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: Wylie Agency
dogs at the perimeter fiction £8.99 B format 198 × 129mm PB 272pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: Wylie Agency
certainty fiction £8.99 April B format 198 × 129mm PB 320pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: Wylie Agency
978 1 78378 267 3 (PB) 978 1 78378 268 0 (Ebook)
978 1 84708 491 0 (PB) 978 1 84708 548 1 (Ebook)
978 1 78378 373 1 (PB) 978 1 78378 374 8 (Ebook)
© Jane Airey
Stop Press
madeleine thien’s novel Do Not Say We Have Nothing was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General’s Literary Award in 2016. She is also the author of the story collection Simple Recipes and the novels Certainty and Dogs at the Perimeter, which was shortlisted for Berlin’s 2014 International Literature Award and won the Frankfurt Book Fair’s 2015 LiBeraturpreis. The daughter of MalaysianChinese immigrants to Canada, she lives in Montreal.
November
Estates
An Intimate History
Lynsey Hanley October
A timely, fully updated edition of the groundbreaking history of Britain’s social housing. ‘Articulate, savage, poignant, engaged and vividly descriptive’ Sunday Times
September
‘[A] powerful book about a dream gone sour... Her descriptions of hopelessness, drunkenness and yobbery in Tower Hamlets cry out to be engraved by a new Hogarth’ Independent
social & cultural history £9.99 May B format 198 × 129mm PB 288pp Selling Territories: ALL Rights: US, SL, TN Agent: United Agents 978 1 78378 382 3
‘Fuelled by unusual passion and vision’ Scotsman lynsey hanley grew up in Chelmsley Wood, a large estate in Birmingham. As well as Estates, her first book, she is the author of Respectable: The Experience of Class (2016).
August
previously published: May 2012 B format 198 × 129mm PB £9.99 978 1 84708 702 7
City Secrets: Florence & Venice Edited by Robert Kahn
July
The unique insider’s travel guide to Florence and Venice: beautiful, iconic and as you’ve never seen them before. ‘There are enough discoveries and insights to keep a native, let alone a visitor, tramping the streets for years’ Daily Telegraph ‘You’ll never want to go back to the standard guidebook’ GQ
June
‘This is the other side of the moon from most city guides’ Irish Times
May
travel £12.99 May 185 × 110mm HB 144pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: n/a
Agent: Fang Duff Kahn 978 1 78378 363 2
city secrets: paris HB £12.99 978 0 98354 008 3
robert kahn is the creator and series editor of the acclaimed City Secrets series. He is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome.
November
Love of Country A Hebridean Journey
Madeleine Bunting An exploration of the history and landscape of the Hebrides, and how these islands shaped Britain. October
A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR ‘[A] moving and wonderful journey’ Amy Liptrot, Guardian ‘Excellent... intellectually challenging and rewarding’ Mark Cocker, New Statesman
madeleine bunting is the author of three previous works of non-fiction, including The Plot: A Biography of an English Acre, which won the Portico Prize and was shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize.
the plot PB £9.99 978 1 84708 144 5
previously published: October 2016 Royal 234 × 153mm HB £18.99 978 1 84708 517 7
fiction £8.99 November B-format 216 × 135mm PB 560pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: Penguin Random House US
978 1 78378 182 9 (PB) 978 1 84708 834 5 (Ebook)
August
travel £9.99 July B format 198 × 129mm PB 368pp Selling Territories: ALL Rights: US, TN, SL Agent: Wylie Agency 978 1 84708 518 4 (PB)
September
‘Splendid, precise and gracious’ Stuart Kelly, Scotland on Sunday
The Patriots Sana Krasikov July
EXPORT EXCLUSIVE The irresistible story of one woman’s journey through 20th-century Russia. ‘A sweeping, ambitious kaleidoscope… I found on every page an observation so acute, a sentence of such truth and shining detail, that it demanded re-reading for the sheer pleasure of it’ Khaled Hosseini
one more year PB 7.99 978 1 84627 178 6
previously published: March 2017 216 × 135mm Demy TPB £12.99 978 1 78378 364 9
May
sana krasikov’s debut short story collection, One More Year, received a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Award, and won the 2009 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature.
June
‘A masterwork, a Doctor Zhivago for our times… with sentences so sharp and wise they stop you in your tracks’ Yann Martel
November
The Story of A Brief Marriage Anuk Arudpragasam
October
Against the backdrop of war, where humanity is brutalized and exhausted, two people try to create a human relationship.
‘A breathtakingly intimate novel… [it] unfolds in limpid prose, punctuated by searing images’ Daily Mail fiction £8.99 July B format 198 × 129mm PB 208pp Selling Territories: NCR/NIND Rights: SL Agent: Aitken Alexander Associates
August
September
‘An exquisite, unbearably moving work of art... Arudpragasam has written a great book. I will never forget it’ Garth Greenwell
978 1 78378 238 3 (PB) 978 1 78378 239 0 (Ebook)
‘Arudpragasam’s unadorned and measured prose... recalls Primo Levi’s If This Is a Man’ Irish Times
previously published: June 2016 B-format 198 × 129mm HB £12.99 978 1 78378 237 6
anuk arudpragasam is from Colombo, Sri Lanka, and is currently working towards a doctorate in philosophy at Columbia University. He writes in English and Tamil.
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?
July
Frans de Waal From the world-renowned primatologist, a groundbreaking work that challenges everything we think we know about animal intelligence. A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
May
June
‘If you are at all interested in what it is to be an animal, human or otherwise, you should read this book’ Guardian
natural history £9.99 July B format 198 × 129mm PB Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: Hodgman Literary 978 1 78378 306 9 (PB)
978 1 78378 305 2 (Ebook) previously published: September 2016 Demy 216 × 138mm HB £14.99 978 1 78378 304 5
‘Lively, punchy and rigorous… an important corrective to human exceptionalism. Fascinating’ Sunday Times
our inner ape PB £9.99 978 1 86207 882 6
frans de waal has been named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People. He is the author of Our Inner Ape, among many other works.
November
To the Back of Beyond Peter Stamm Translated from the German by Michael Hofmann
October
A new novel from the Man Booker International finalist.
September
A
fter returning from a pleasant family holiday, Thomas walks out of the front door and keeps walking.
Astrid, his wife, waits for him as long as she can, then puts everything she has into trying to find him. But there is little to be done if Thomas intends to stay lost.
August
Written in precise, hypnotic prose, To the Back of Beyond is a graceful and resonant work about identity, connection and freedom, from one of Europe’s most important writers. Praise for Peter Stamm:
July
‘[Stamm’s] prose, in a crystalline translation by Michael Hofmann, is as sharply illuminating as a surgical light’ Economist
© Gaby Gerster
‘A brilliant writer, a latter-day applicant to the tradition of Camus’ New Statesman
fiction £12.99 August Demy 216 × 135mm TPB 320pp TBC Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: Other Press
‘One of Europe’s most exciting writers’ New York Times Book Review
978 1 78378 329 8 (TPB) 978 1 78378 331 1 (Ebook)
all days are night PB £8.99 978 1 78378 009 9
June
peter stamm is the author of Seven Years, We’re Flying and All Days Are Night, and the winner of numerous international prizes.
we’re flying PB £9.99 978 1 84708 768 3
May
michael hofmann has translated the works of many writers, including Franz Kafka, Joseph Roth and Hans Fallada. He teaches at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
seven years PB £8.99 978 1 84708 510 8
November
The Secret Twenties British Intelligence, the Russians and the Jazz Age
October
Timothy Phillips The true story of espionage and counterespionage in London’s roaring twenties.
I
September
n the 1920s, many in the British establishment became convinced that their way of life was being threatened by the new Soviet state. The British government launched vast spying operations in response, carrying out surveillance on not only suspect Russians, but British aristocrats, Bloomsbury artists, ordinary workers and even MPs. What they discovered had profound ramifications for the whole of British society, dividing the nation and laying the foundations for the later Cold War.
August
Drawing on a wealth of recently declassified archives, The Secret Twenties tells the story of the first Soviet spies and the double agents in their midst, all of it set against the sparkling backdrop of cocktail-era London. Praise for Beslan:
‘Compelling... Perceptive and emotional’ Esquire history £20.00 September Royal 234 × 153mm HB 320pp TBC B/W images Selling Territories: ALL Rights: US, SL Agent: David Higham Associates
978 1 8470 8251 0 (HB) 978 1 8470 884 0 (Ebook)
‘A fine piece of investigative journalism... gripping and intimate’ Observer
beslan PB £8.99 978 1 86207 993 9
‘Valuable, frank and important work’ Irish Times
timothy phillips is the author of Beslan: The Tragedy of School No. 1. He grew up in Northern Ireland and now lives in London. He holds a doctorate in Russian from Oxford University and has written and spoken widely on British and Russian history.
© Sam James
May
June
July
‘A brave and sensitive writer’ Evening Standard
November
The Mother Of All Questions Further Feminisms
Rebecca Solnit October
A new collection from one of the most important public intellectuals writing today.
F
September
ollowing on from the success of Men Explain Things to Me comes a new collection of essays in which Rebecca Solnit opens up a feminism for all of us: one that doesn’t stigmatize women’s lives, whether they include spouses and children or not; that brings empathy to the silences in men’s lives as well as the silencing of women’s lives and celebrates the ways feminism has shifted in recent years to reclaim rape jokes, revise canons, and rethink our everyday lives.
August
Praise for Men Explain Things to Me: ‘Essential reading for anyone – feminist or not, male or female’ Irish Examiner ‘One of the most important essayists of her generation… incendiary, indignant, and true’ Scotland on Sunday
July
literary essays £12.99 September B format 198 × 129mm HB 176pp TBC Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: Hill Nadell Literary Agency
978 1 78378 355 7 (HB) 978 1 78378 356 4 (Ebook)
men explain things to me HB £12.99 978 1 78378 079 2
© Jim Herrington
wanderlust PB £9.99 978 1 78378 075 4
May
rebecca solnit is the author of Men Explain Things to Me, Wanderlust, The Faraway Nearby, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Hope in the Dark, River of Shadows and A Paradise Built in Hell. A contributing editor to Harper’s, she writes regularly for the London Review of Books and the Los Angeles Times.
June
the faraway nearby PB £9.99
November
A Revolution of Feeling The Decade that Forged the Modern Mind
October
Rachel Hewitt From the bestselling author of Map of a Nation, a captivating history of the turbulent decade in which the Enlightenment collapsed and the modern psyche was born.
I
August
September
n the 1790s, inspired by the French Revolution, British radicals developed utopian projects. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the philosophers William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, the physician Thomas Beddoes and the first photographer Thomas Wedgwood – all of them sought to reform sex, education, commerce, politics and medicine by freeing desire from repressive constraints.
July
When the French Revolution descended into bloody Terror and the British government quashed radical political activities, feverish optimism gave way to disappointment. Yet, as Rachel Hewitt argues in this vivid and absorbing account, while these revolutionary proposals collapsed, that failure resulted in its own cultural revolution: ‘a revolution of feeling’ – the aftershocks of which are felt to the present day.
978 1 84708 573 3 (HB) 978 1 84708 575 7 (Ebook)
Praise for Map of a Nation:
map of a nation PB £9.99 978 1 84708 254 1
‘A fascinating narrative [that] illuminates the process by which our nation redrew itself over a century’ The Times, ‘Books of the Year’ ‘Endlessly absorbing… lively and informative’ Observer
June
history £20.00 October Royal 234 × 153mm HB Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: Wylie Agency
rachel hewitt is the author of Map of a Nation: A Biography of the Ordnance Survey, which was shortlisted for the Galaxy Award for best popular non-fiction book 2011, and for which she won the 2008 Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award for Non-Fiction.
© Jay Varner
May
‘A sparkling biography’ Sunday Times
November
Islander Patrick Barkham
October
An enticing exploration of the smallest islands of Britain from the award-winning, bestselling author of The Butterfly Isles.
B
September
ritain is an archipelago made up of two large islands and 6,289 smaller ones. Some, like the Isle of Man, are miniature nations with their own language and tax laws; others, like Ray Island in Essex, are abandoned and mysterious. Our small islands are places of both freedom and imprisonment, party destinations and oases of peace, strangely suburban and deeply wild.
August
As he travels to ever-smaller islands in search of their particular magic, Patrick Barkham meets all kinds of islanders, from nuns to puffins, from dropouts to rare subspecies of vole, and begins to discover what it is to be an islander himself.
‘A must-read for all Britain’s naturalists’ Chris Packham
July
‘Patrick has joined the nature writers’ First Division’ Simon Barnes, The Times
© Fiona Shaw
Praise for Patrick Barkham:
travel £20.00 October Royal 234 × 153mm HB 288pp TBC Selling Territories: ALL Rights: US, TN, SL Agent: Curtis Brown
‘Barkham writes with authority, love, charm, understatement and the driest of wit’ Spectator
978 1 78378 188 1 (HB) 978 1 78378 189 8 (Ebook)
the butterfly isles PB £9.99 978 1 84708 315 9
patrick barkham is a features writer for the Guardian. He is the author of The Butterfly Isles: A Summer in Search of Our Emperors and Admirals, Badgerlands: The Twilight World of Britain’s Most Enigmatic Animal and Coastlines: The Story of Our Shore.
June
coastlines PB £9.99 978 1 84708 899 4
badgerlands PB £9.99 978 1 84708 505 4
May
November
Eat the Buddha Life in a Tibetan Town
October
Barbara Demick
From the Samuel Johnson Prize-winning author of Nothing to Envy, a riveting portrait of 21st-century Tibetan life and resistance, told through stories from a single town.
September
I
n 1950, China claimed sovereignty over Tibet, leading to decades of unrest and resistance. Since 2009, a spate of Tibetan selfimmolations protesting Chinese policies have taken place, bringing fraught Tibet–China relations to Western attention once again.
July
August
In Eat the Buddha, Barbara Demick journeys to Aba, the Tibetan town where the protests began. Often travelling in disguise to get through Chinese government checkpoints, she stayed with and interviewed Aba’s residents, among them a 17-yearold novice monk contemplating self-immolation and an exiled Tibetan princess. Weaving together their stories with the history of China’s dominance over Tibet, Demick creates a vivid portrait of Tibetan life and the challenges Tibetans face today, locked in a struggle for identity against one of the most powerful countries in the world. 978 1 78378 208 6 (TPB) 978 1 78378 240 6 (Ebook)
nothing to envy PB £9.99 978 1 84708 141 4
Praise for Nothing to Envy: ‘An utterly compelling account’ Mail on Sunday ‘No writer has done a better job of clothing the academic concerns with the rich detail of the lives of ordinary people’ The Times
besieged PB £9.99 978 1 84708 411 8
barbara demick won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea. She is also the author of Besieged: Life Under Fire on a Sarajevo Street, which won the George Polk Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Award and was shortlisted for a Pulitzer Prize. She lives in New York.
May
June
reportage £14.99 October Royal 234 × 153mm TPB 272pp TBC Selling Territories: NCR/ NANZ Rights: SL Agent: Abner Stein
November
The Written World The Story of Literature and How It Shaped History
Martin Puchner October
How writing changed civilizations, cultures and the history of the world.
Y
September
ou’re likely to list the invention of paper, the printing press and the world wide web as major influences on the way we share stories. You probably wouldn’t include Malian singers, American astronauts, Greek generals, Japanese courtiers and Spanish adventurers. And yet all of them played a crucial role in the history of literature, where texts have been central to the development and shape of religions, political movements and even nations.
July
© Johannes Marburg
August
In engaging, accessible prose, The Written World tells the spellbinding story of the development of writing and the influence it wields, offering a new and enticing perspective on human history.
history £14.99 November Demy 216 × 153mm HB 272pp TBC
Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: Felicity Bryan Associates
978 1 78378 313 7 (HB) 978 1 78378 315 1 (Ebook)
June May
martin puchner is a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Harvard University, where he teaches world literature. Through his online courses, travels, and his six-volume Norton Anthology of World Literature, he has reached students and audiences in many corners of the globe.
November
Homeland Walter Kempowski
October
Translated from the German by Anthea Bell
From the bestselling author of All for Nothing, a sharply evocative novel of one man’s journey into his family history and the troubled legacy of WWII.
I
September
t’s 1988 – the year before the Berlin wall came down. Jonathan Fabricus, a journalist living in West Germany, is asked by a car manufacturer to travel to the contested lands of former East Prussia to write about the route for a car rally. It’s a plum job, but his interest is piqued by a personal connection. It was here, among the refugees fleeing the advancing Russians in 1945, that he was born.
August
Homeland is a searing, nuanced work from one of the great modern European storytellers, in which an everyday German comes face to face with a painful family history, as well as devastating questions about Germans’ complicity in the war.
July
© Helmut Fricke
Praise for All for Nothing:
978 1 78378 352 6 (HB) 978 1 78378 354 0 (Ebook)
all for nothing PB £8.99 978 1 84708 721 8
‘A novel of profound depth and originality’ Sunday Times walter kempowski (1929–2007) was one of Germany’s most important post-war writers, known for his acclaimed collection of first-hand accounts of WWII, including Swansong 1945. His critically applauded final novel, All for Nothing, was a bestseller in both Germany and the UK.
swansong 1945 PB £12.99 978 1 84708 614 9
anthea bell’s translations include works by E.T.A. Hoffmann, W.G. Sebald and Stefan Zweig. She has won many prizes including the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, and been awarded an OBE and the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for her services to literary translation.
May
June
fiction £14.99 November Demy 216 × 135mm HB 240pp Selling Territories: ALL Rights: US, SL Agent: Random House Germany
‘An astonishing literary achievement’ Daily Telegraph
November
A New Map of Wonders A Journey in Search of Modern Marvels
Caspar Henderson October
An exploration and celebration of wonder in its many forms.
cASPAr henderSon
August
Award-winning writer Caspar Henderson takes us on a personal journey through the transcendent moments we all experience, from the unexpected sighting of a rainbow, and the soaring beauty of a passage of music, to the first beats of a baby’s heart. Written with the curiosity and enthusiasm of some of our great explorers, A New Map of Wonders encourages us to see the wonder all around us – underpinning the laws of our universe, coursing through our bodies, driving our scientific advances, and even helping us make sense of our time here on earth.
September
W
hat is wonder, where can we find it, and how can it change our lives?
A Journey in SeArch of Modern MArvelS
Praise for The Book of Barely Imagined Beings:
July
‘Utterly extraordinary: a glorious and genrebending grimoire... witty, moving, urgent and beautiful’ Robert Macfarlane ‘As fabulous as anything Borges ever conceived’ Sunday Telegraph
natural history £20.00 November Royal 234 × 153mm HB 368pp TBC Selling Territories: ALL Rights: US, TN, SL Agent: Antony Harwood Ltd
‘Wonderful, beautiful and engrossing... a delight’ Robin Ince
978 1 78378 133 1 (HB) 978 1 78378 136 2 (Ebook)
the book of barely imagined beings PB £10.99 978 1 84708 244 2
June
© Kate Rayworth
May
caspar henderson is a writer and journalist whose first book, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, won the Roger Deakin Award of the Society of Authors and the Jerwood Award of the Royal Society of Literature, and was shortlisted for the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science.
November
Multiple Choice Alejandro Zambra Translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell
October
Written in the form of an entrance examination, this playful, poignant, genre-bending novella tells a story of copying, cheating, faking and messing-up ‘Funny, melancholy, surprising... it might just change the way you think about fiction’ Guardian, ‘Best Books of 2016’
fiction £8.99 August B format 198 × 129mm PB 112pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: Wylie 978 1 78378 271 0 (PB) 978 1 78378 270 3 (Ebook)
previously published: October 2016 B format 198 × 129mm £12.00 978 1 78378 269 7 way of going home PB £8.99 978 1 84708 627 3
August
September
‘Brilliant... funny... highly original and poignant’ Daily Telegraph ‘A metatextual blast’ Scotsman ‘Full of wit, spark, pathos and insight’ Big Issue Hailed as ‘Latin America’s New Literary Star’ (New Yorker) alejandro zambra is the author of novels and the story collection My Documents, a finalist for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. megan mcdowell is a Spanish-language translator whose work has appeared in the New Yorker, the Paris Review, Harper’s and Granta.
The Diary of a Gulag Prison Guard Ivan Chistyakov July
Translated from the Russian by Arch Tait
A unique testimony from the Soviet Gulag – a prison guard’s private diary, written between 1935 and 1936.
May
June
‘A rare and fascinating insight into the Soviet camp system, and a reminder that the imprisoned weren’t its only victims’ Anna Reid, author of Leningrad ivan chistyakov commanded an armed guard unit on a section of the Baikal–Amur Railway, which was built by forced labour. He was killed in 1941. memoir £9.99 November B format 198 × 129mm PB 288pp Selling Territories: ALL Rights: US, SL Agent: ELKOST Agency
978 1 78378 257 4 (PB) 978 1 78378 258 1 (Ebook) previously published: January 2016 216 × 138mm HB £14.99 978 1 78378 256 7
arch tait has translated 30 books from the Russian, and short stories and essays by many of today’s leading Russian writers. His translation of Anna Politkovskaya’s Putin’s Russia was awarded the inaugural PEN Literature in Translation prize in 2010. Most recently, he has translated Mikhail Gorbachev’s The New Russia.
Portobello Books July - December 2017
November
Such Small Hands Andrés Barba
October
Translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman
A dark jolt of literary perfection.
H September
er father died instantly, her mother in the hospital. She has learned to say this flatly and without emotion, the way she says her name (Marina), her doll’s name (also Marina) and her age (seven). Now she lives in the orphanage with the other little girls. But Marina is not like the other little girls. When she introduces them to Marina the Doll, she sets in motion a chain of events from which there can be no release.
August
With shades of Daphne du Maurier, Shirley Jackson and Guillermo del Toro, this is a bedtime story that will haunt its reader’s dreams.
July
with an afterword by edmund white
Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: Transit Books
978 1 84627 643 9 (HB) 978 1 84627 644 6 (Ebook)
andrs barba is the author of twelve novels and was selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young Spanish Novelists. His writing has been translated into eight languages. lisa dillman is a senior lecturer at Emory College. In 2016 she won the Best Translated Book Award for her translation of Yuri Herrera’s Signs Preceding the End of the World.
© Eduardo Cabrera
May
June
fiction £10.00 August B format 198 × 129mm HB 112pp
November
Go, Went, Gone Jenny Erpenbeck Translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky
October
The new novel from the winner of the Independent Prize for Foreign Fiction 2015.
R
© Katharina Behling
Praise for Jenny Erpenbeck:
August
In this radical, exquisite novel, Jenny Erpenbeck turns her attention to the contemporary refugee crisis and our responsibility for its creation.
September
ichard has spent his life as a professor at the university, immersed in the world of books and ideas, but now he is retired, his books remain in their packing boxes and his ideas about how society works begin to change. When he visits a tent city set up by African asylum seekers, he finds new friends and a new purpose, but the laws of his land appear designed to prevent the people he has connected with from ever finding a home alongside him.
fiction £12.99 September B format 198 × 129mm HB 256pp TBC Selling Territories: NCR
‘The most brilliant European writer of my generation’ Neel Mukherjee, Irish Times
visitation PB £7.99 978 1 84627 190 8
‘Reading Erpenbeck is like falling under hypnosis’ Guardian
(Ebook) the end of days PB £8.99 978 1 84627 515 9
the old child & the book of words PB £7.99 978 1 84627 058 1
July
‘[An] absolute must-read’ Arifa Akbar, Independent
Rights: SL Agent: Random House Germany 978 1 84627 620 0 (HB) 978 1 84627 621 7
June
jenny erpenbeck is the author of The Old Child & The Book of Words, Visitation and The End of Days, winner of the Independent Prize for Foreign Fiction.
May
susan bernofsky has translated works by Robert Walser, Hermann Hesse, Gregor von Rezzori, Yoko Tawada, Ludwig Harig and Franz Kafka.
November
The White Book Han Kang
October
Translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith
A new book from the Man Booker International prize-winning author of The Vegetarian: a meditation on the colour white, and on life, death and ritual.
W
August
September
riting while on a residency in Warsaw, a city palpably scarred by the violence of the past, the narrator finds herself haunted by the story of her older sister, who died a mere two hours after birth. A fragmented exploration of white things – the swaddling bands that were also her shroud, the breast milk she did not live to drink, the blank page on which the narrator herself attempts to reconstruct the story – unfolds in a powerfully poetic distillation. This is both the most autobiographical and the most experimental book to date from South Korean master Han Kang. Praise for The Vegetarian:
fiction £9.99 November B-format 198 × 129mm HB 112pp TBC, B/ W photos Selling territories: ALL Rights: US, SL Agent: Barbara J. Zitwer Agency
978 1 84627 629 3 (HB) 978 1 84627 630 9 (Ebook)
human acts PB £8.99 978 1 84627 597 5
han kang was born in Gwangju, South Korea and moved to Seoul at the age of ten. She studied Korean literature at Yonsei University. Her writing has won the Yi Sang Literary Prize, the Today’s Young Artist Award, and the Korean Literature Novel Award. The Vegetarian won the 2016 International Man Booker Prize and Human Acts won the Manhae Literary Award. She currently teaches creative writing at the Seoul Institute of the Arts.
the vegetarian PB £8.99 978 1 84627 603 3
© Park Jaehong
May
June
July
‘Mind-blowing… Han Kang has mastered eloquent restraint in a work of savage beauty and unnerving physicality’ Irish Times
deborah smith founded Tilted Axis Press in 2015. In 2016 she won the Arts Foundation Award for Literary Translation.
November
The History Thieves Secrets, Lies and the Shaping of a Modern Nation
Ian Cobain October
From the author of Cruel Britannia: a book exposing the culture of concealment at the heart of the British government. ‘An important and highly readable book’ Geoffrey Robertson QC ‘Cobain meticulously blows the lid off Britain’s obsessions with official secrets... immensely readable’ Irish Times
‘Engrossing’ Guardian ‘Book of the Week’ cruel britannia PB £9.99 978 1 84627 334 6
978 1 84627 585 2 (PB) 978 1 84627 584 5 (Ebook) previously published: January 2016 Royal 234 × 153mm HB £20.00 978 1 84627 583 8
August
ian cobain has won the Martha Gellhorn Prize and the Paul Foot Award for investigative journalism, as well as several Amnesty International media awards.
history £9.99 July B format 198 × 129mm PB 368pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: The Viney Agency
September
‘A meticulously researched, eye-opening triumph. Essential reading in the age of Snowden and Assange’ Charles Cumming
Swallowing Mercury Wioletta Greg July
Translated from the Polish by Eliza Marciniak
An acclaimed Polish novella of ordinary lives and extraordinary days. ‘Greg writes with a precise, strange charm, and the poet’s acute sensitivity to detail’ Sarah Perry, author of The Essex Serpent June
‘Sparkles with a gem-like quality’ Guardian ‘Highly evocative’ Scotland on Sunday ‘Shines with a surreal and unsettling vigour’ Financial Times wioletta greg is the author of six volumes of poetry. She was shortlisted for the 2015 Griffin Poetry Prize.
978 1 84627 609 5 (PB) 978 1 84627 608 8 (Ebook) previously published: January 2017 B format 198 × 129mm HB £12.99 978 1 84627 607 1
May
eliza marciniak is an editor and translator.
fiction £8.99 November B format 198 × 129mm PB 160pp Selling Territories: ALL Rights: US, SL Agent: Barbara Zitwer Agency
Granta Magazine July - December 2017
November
Granta 140 The Mind
May
June
July
August
September
October
Edited by Sigrid Rausing
We know how the brain works, but do we understand the mind? In an age when we are finally taking mental health as seriously as physical health, this issue of Granta explores the conscious self: how it perceives, judges and lives in the world. Ekow Eshun confronts his night terrors; and Rana Dasgupta looks beyond the headlines to understand the live-streamed suicide of a French teenager. Andrew Brown investigates a racist school massacre in Sweden; Colin Grant recalls an unlikely friendship with a mentally ill patient; Jack Shenker asks how to feel ‘at home’ in postrevolutionary Cairo; Penelope Lively looks at how her books have formed a tangible record of where her mind has been; and Alec Ash examines the place of the park in the Beijing imagination. With new fiction from Robert Coover, Joanna Hershon, Tom Lee and the 2016 International Man Booker Prize winner Han Kang.
sigrid rausing is Editor and Publisher of Granta magazine and Publisher of Granta and Portobello Books. She is the author of History, Memory and Identity in PostSoviet Estonia:The End of a Collective Farm and Everything is Wonderful, a memoir.
£12.99 July Demy 210 × 145 mm PB/Ebook 224 pp TBC Colour illustrations
Colour photo section Selling Territories: ALL Rights: Granta
978 1 90988 908 8 (PB) 978 1 90988 909 5 (Ebook)
©Maria Baoli / Millennium Images, UK
November
Granta 141 Canada Edited by Catherine Leroux and Madeleine Thien
October
2017 marks the 150th anniversary of the Canadian Confederation, when the British colonies of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were united.
September
In this special issue of Granta, we celebrate the diversity of social, political and literary life in Canada, the largest country in the western hemisphere, and one of the few where the experiment of multiculturalism appears to have worked.
August
Bringing you new fiction, reportage, photography, poetry and memoir from Canada, this issue showcases the best of both the English and French literary communities, throwing a spotlight on an enigmatic nation with a rich literary heritage.
July
catherine leroux is a novelist, translator and journalist. Her debut novel La marche en forêt was published in 2011. Le mur mitoyen won the 2014 France-Quebec Prize and its English version, The Party Wall, was nominated for the Giller Prize in 2016. Her third book, Madame Victoria, won the 2016 Adrienne-Choquette Award for short stories. Catherine Leroux lives in Montreal.
Colour illustrations Colour photo section Selling Territories: ALL Rights: Granta
978 1 90988 910 1 (PB) 978 1 90988 911 8 (Ebook)
May
£12.99 November 210 × 145 mm PB / Ebook 224pp (TBC)
June
madeleine thien is the author of the story collection Simple Recipes, and three novels, including Certainty and Dogs at the Perimeter. Her most recent book, Do Not Say We Have Nothing, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, won the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the GovernorGeneral’s Literary Award for Fiction, and was named a New York Times Notable Book in 2016. Her work has been translated into twenty-five languages. The youngest daughter of Malaysian-Chinese immigrants to Canada, she lives in Montreal.
granta and portobello books backlist
the luminaries 978 1 84708 432 3 £9.99
may we be forgiven 978 1 84708 323 4 £8.99
the wild places 978 1 8470 8018 9 £9.99
londoners 978 1 84708 329 6 £9.99
the vegetarian 978 1 84627 603 3 £8.99
stasiland 978 1 84708 335 7 £9.99
men explain things to me 978 1 78378 079 2 £12.99
strange weather in tokyo 978 1 84627 510 4 £7.99
behind the beautiful forevers 978 1 8462 7451 0 £9.99
nothing to envy 978 1 84708 141 4 £9.99
the man without a face 978 1 84708 423 1 £9.99
map of a nation 978 1 84708 254 1 £9.99
Index A
H
R
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? 10 Arudpragasam, Arud 10
Han, Kang 24 Hanley, Lynsey 8 Henderson, Caspar 20 Hewitt, Rachel 14 History Thieves, The 25 Homeland 18
Revolution of Feeling, A 14
B Barba, Andrés Barkham, Patrick Bunting, Madeleine
22 15 9
K
C Certainty Chistyakov, Ivan City Secrets: Florence & Venice Cobain, Ian
I Islander 15
6 20
Kempowski, Walter Kahn, Robert Krasikov, Sana
8 25
L Love of Country
17 8 9
9
D Demick, Barbara 16 de Waal, Frans 10 Diary of a Gulag Prison Guard, The 20 Do Not Say We Have Nothing 6 Dogs at the Perimeter 6
M Mother of All Questions, The Multiple Choice
13 20
N New Map of Wonders, A 19
E Eat the Buddha 16 Erpenbeck, Jenny 23 Estates 8
G Granta 140: The Mind Granta 141: Canada Go, Went, Gone Greg, Wioletta
P Patriots, The Phillips, Timothy Puchner, Martin
28 29 23 25
9 12 17
S Solnit, Rebecca 13 Stamm, Peter 11 Secret Twenties, The 12 Story of a Brief Marriage, The 10 Such Small Hands 22 Swallowing Mercury 25
T Thien, Madeleine 6 To the Back of Beyond 11
W White Book, The 24 Written World, The 17
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