Granta Publications Catalogue January to June 2014

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the magazine of new writing

January – June 2014

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Contents GRANTA

The Virtues of the Table The Dig

Secrecy

Gob’s Grief

Alexandria

Nothing to Envy

The Day of the Owl

Sicilian Uncles

Equal Danger

The Moro Affair

The Knight and Death and One

Way Or Another The Wine Dark Sea

The Fun Parts

Orkney

Dispatcher

Children of Paradise

Feeding the Ghosts

Field Notes from a Hidden City Stone Voices

Dept. of Speculation

The French Intifada

Leaving the Sea

The Letter Bearer

The Road to Middlemarch We’re Flying

Running with the Pack

Bodies of Light

Living with a Wild God

The Banner of the Passing Clouds

4 5 6 6 7 7 8 8 8 9

9 9 10 10 11 12 12 13 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 19 20 21 22

A Beautiful Truth Underlands

The Luminaries City Secrets: Paris The Faraway Nearby Badgerlands

Indonesia Etc.

The Empathy Exams Young God

Subtle Bodies

Mortals

Words Will Break Cement

Granta 126: do you remember Granta 127: Japan

34 35

PORTOBELLO

Christ’s Entry into Brussels Brewster

Charlie Chaplin’s Last Dance Kolyma Diaries

Nightwork

The Devil’s Workshop

The Emperor of Paris

Drugs 2.0

Strange Weather in Tokyo

38 39 40 41 42 43 43 44 44

Selling Territories Serial rights Translation rights US rights

ncr nanz nnz nsa nea nsin nmyl

Formats hb tpb pb ome

22 23 24 25 26 26 27 28 29 30 30 31

GRANTA MAGAZINE

Rights sl tn us

Hardback Trade Paperback Paperback 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

Granta Books January – June 2014

January

The Virtues of the Table How to Eat and Think

February

Julian Baggini

From one of the most established voices in popular philosophy; an entertaining and thought-provoking look at the food on our plates, and what it can teach us about being human.

H

March

ow we eat, farm and shop for food is not only a matter of taste. To think seriously about food we must consider our relationship to nature, to our fellow animals, to each other and to ourselves. So can thinking about food teach us about being virtuous? And is it true that ‘to know how to eat is to know how to live’?

April

From the author of The Ego Trick and The Pig That Wants to be Eaten, this is a tasty and stimulating exploration of our values and vices.

Praise for Julian Baggini:

popular philosophy £14.99 January A5 210 × 145mm TPB 288pp TBC Selling Territories: NCR Rights: US, TN, SL Agent: David Higham Associates

978 1 84708 714 0 (TPB) 978 1 84708 716 4 (Ebook)

the ego trick: PB £8.99 978 1 84708 273 2

‘[Baggini takes us on] a brisk jaunt through life’s biggest questions... witty [and] engaging’ Observer ‘Simple, serious and devoid of ostentation’ New Statesman

julian baggini (www.julianbaggini.com) is Founding Editor of The Philosophers’ Magazine. His books include Welcome to Everytown: A Journey into the English Mind, the bestselling The Pig That Wants to be Eaten, Do They Think You’re Stupid? and The Ego Trick, all published by Granta Books.

© Richard H.Smith

July

June

May

‘Baggini is exceptional within this popular genre for his clarity of mind’ Guardian



January

The Dig Cynan Jones

February

After a sudden staggering loss, a farmer battles to keep his life from falling apart.

When a badger-baiter trespasses on his land, the fates of the two men become intertwined, and violence and sorrow visit them both once again.

March

U

nfolding across the landscapes of west Wales, where man, animal, land and weather are at loggerheads, The Dig is a searing novel about the physiology of grief and the isolation of loss, which crackles with the energy of truly vital storytelling.

April

Praise for Cynan Jones: ‘Jones’s passion for the landscape - for its colours, its creatures, its textures, its scents – is absolutely magnetic’ Sarah Waters

May

‘One of the most accomplished writers working in the UK today... authentically rooted, moving, evocative’ Jon McGregor fiction £12.99 January B format 198 × 129mm HB 176pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: US, SL Agent: AM Heath

‘It took me over completely, the brutality in it and the tenderness... Not one of Jones’s plain strong words is wasted.’

Georgina Harding

978 1 84708 878 9 (HB) 978 1 84708 879 6 (Ebook)

June

© Alice Fiorilli 2013



July

cynan jones was born in Wales in 1975. His novels include The Long Dry (which won a 2007 Betty Trask Award) and Everything I Found on the Beach. An extract from The Dig was shortlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award.

January

Secrecy Rupert Thomson

© Robin Farquhar-Thomson

fiction £7.99 January B format 198 × 129mm PB 320pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: US Agent: RCW

‘His finest novel to date’ Observer ‘Shimmering with superstitions, repression, and incomprehension... Masterly’ FT ‘Bewitching’ Daily Mail

978 1 84708 482 8 (PB) 978 1 84708 701 0 (Ebook) previously published: March 2013 Royal 234 × 153mm HB £14.99 978 1 84708 163 6

this party’s got to stop PB £8.99 978 1 84708 174 2

April

March

February

Set in Medici Florence, a city blighted by corruption and austerity, Secrecy is a scintillatingly inventive historical novel from one of Britain’s foremost writers.

rupert thomson is the author of eight novels including Death of a Murderer, (shortlisted for the Costa Book Award) and a memoir, This Party’s Got to Stop (winner of the Writers’ Guild NonFiction Award).

Gob’s Grief Chris Adrian

fiction £8.99 January B format 198 × 129mm PB 400pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: WME

978 1 84708 582 5 (PB) 978 1 84708 583 2 (Ebook) previously published: January 2013 Royal 234 × 153mm HB £16.99 978 1 84708 581 8

‘There are passages throughout Gob’s Grief of shocking power...

Weird vignette follows bravura passage follows profound musing, in what amounts not so much to a novel as a sheer outpouring of writing, an overflow of history, fantasy and fiction’ Guardian ‘Adrian’s portrait of a nation gone mad with grief is splendid, ambitious and often heartbreaking’ The Times

the great night PB £8.99 978 1 84708 321 0

July

June

© Gus Eliot

May

A magical story of grief and ghosts set in the aftermath of the American Civil War, from the critically acclaimed author of The Great Night.



Selected by the New Yorker as one of the ‘20 Under 40’, chris adrian is the author of The Children’s Hospital, A Better Angel and The Great Night.

January

Alexandria

The Last Nights Of Cleopatra

Peter Stothard Sir Peter Stothard’s captivating memoir, written in Egypt as the country moved towards revolution.

February

‘Stothard marshals his material superbly to create an absorbing mix of history, biography and memoir’ Sunday Times ‘Wonderful, surprising... This is an uplifting book – a constant reminder that life is far more richly layered and mysterious than we realise’ Daily Mail

sir peter stothard is a political and literary journalist, Editor of the TLS and the author of two books of diaries, Thirty Days (2003) and On the Spartacus Road (2010).

memoir / travel £9.99 January B format 198 × 129mm PB 400pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: Ed Victor Ltd

978 1 84708 704 1 (PB) 978 1 84708 705 8 (Ebook)

March

‘A subtle, haunting and complex book’ Guardian

previously published: June 2013 200 × 156mm HB £25.00 978 1 84708 703 4

Abril

Nothing To Envy Real Lives in North Korea

Barbara Demick

May

A revised edition of Demick’s Samuel Johnson Prize-winning, bestselling portrait of ordinary lives in the world’s least ordinary country: North Korea.

‘A rare light on so hidden a country, and all the more remarkable for its unfailingly engaging humanity’ Guardian ‘A fascinating portrait’ Observer



978 1 84708 141 4 (PB) 978 1 86207 940 3 (Ebook) previously published: July 2010 B format 198 × 129mm PB £9.99 978 1 84708 141 4

July

barbara demick has received the George Polk Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in international reporting. She is the author of Besieged.

besieged: life under fire on a sarajevo street PB £9.99 978 1 84708 411 8

history £9.99 January B format 198 × 129mm PB 368pp Selling Territories: NCR / NANZ Rights: SL Agent: Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc

June

‘Eye-opening and often heart-rending… one of the most fascinating books of the year’ Independent on Sunday

January

Leonardo Sciascia Translated from the Italian

The Day of the Owl February

Translated by Archibald Colquhoun and Arthur Oliver

A man is shot as he runs for the bus, in a Mafia-run town where no one will admit if they heard him fall.

March

‘The most intelligent detective story I have ever read’ Daily Telegraph

Rights: n/a Agent: Agenzia Letteraria Internazionale 978 1 84708 925

fiction £8.99 January B format 198 × 129mm PB 272pp Selling Territories: NCR

previously published: April 2001 B format 198 × 129mm PB £7.99 978 1 86207 418 7

Sicilian Uncles April

Translated by N. S. Thompson

Four exhilarating novellas offer a glimpse Sicilian life from 1848 to the death of Stalin.

May

‘Dazzling’ Philip Hensher, Spectator Rights: n/a Agent: Agenzia Letteraria Internazionale 978 1 84708 926 7

fiction £8.99 January B format 198 × 129mm PB 208pp Selling Territories: NCR

previously published: June 2001 B format 198 × 129mm PB £7.99 978 1 86207 438 5

Equal Danger June

Translated by Adrienne Foulke

A string of high-profile murders leads an inspector to believe there is more to his case than a personal vendetta.

‘Sophisticated and polished’

July

Daily Mail Rights: n/a Agent: Agenzia Letteraria Internazionale 978 1 84708 927 4

fiction £8.99 January B format 198 × 129mm PB 128pp Selling Territories: NCR



previously published: June 2001 B format 198 × 129mm PB £7.99 978 1 86207 437 8

January

The Moro Affair Translated by Sacha Rabinovitch

Untangles the real-life case of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro’s kidnap, which ended in the discovery of his body in the boot of a car.

February

‘Fascinating’ Independent true crime £8.99 March B format 198 × 129mm PB 176pp Selling Territories: NCR

Rights: n/a Agent: Agenzia Letteraria Internazionale 978 1 84708 929 8

previously published: June 2006 B format 198 × 129mm PB £7.99 978 1 86207 522 1

March

The Knight and Death and One Way Or Another Translated by Joseph Farrell and Sacha Rabinovitc

Two powerful novellas from the master of European noir.

Rights: n/a Agent: Agenzia Letteraria Internazionale 978 1 84708 930 4

fiction £8.99 March B format 198 × 129mm PB 160pp Selling Territories: NCR

April

‘Writing of the highest calibre’ Observer previously published: June 2003 B format 198 × 129mm PB £8.99 978 1 86207 579 5

Translated by Avril Bardoni

May

The Wine Dark Sea

A collection of the best of Sciascia’s gritty and darkly glittering stories.

Rights: n/a Agent: Agenzia Letteraria Internazionale 978 1 84708 928 1

fiction £8.99 March B format 198 × 129mm PB 272pp Selling Territories: NCR

June

‘Brief, haunting and unforgettable’ Sunday Tribune previously published: April 2001 B format 198 × 129mm PB £7.99 978 1 86207 414 9



July

leonardo sciascia (1912–1989) was one of Sicily’s most lucid and fearless novelists. His books, often called thrillers, are rooted in the moral and historical problems of modern Italy.

January

The Fun Parts Sam Lipsyte A funny, irreverent, turbo-charged collection of short stories from a master of the genre.

February

‘A brilliantly funny writer... Lipsyte’s writing is so biting, so inventive, you find yourself rereading whole paragraphs for the pleasure of it’ Literary Review

fiction £8.99 January B format 198 × 129mm PB 240pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: WME 978 1 84708 805 5 (PB) 978 1 84708 804 8 (Ebook)

previously published: July 2013 Demy 216 × 135mm TPB £12.99 978 1 84708 803 1

April

March

‘Brilliant... Lipsyte’s understanding of modern spite, rage and self-destruction is peerless. He drags you in’ FT ‘You won’t read finer sentences this year’ Scotland on Sunday sam lipsyte is the author of the short story collection Venus Drive and three novels: The Subject Steve, Home Land and The Ask, which was a New York Times Notable Book.

Orkney Amy Sackville

May

From the winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys prize, a bewitching novel which dances the fine line between reality and fantasy to explore the dark edges of desire.

‘Poetic, dreamlike and beautifully written’ The Times

fiction £7.99 February B format 198 × 129mm PB 224pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: US, SL Agent: RCW 978 1 84708 665 5 (PB) 978 1 84708 666 2 (Ebook)

previously published: February 2013 B format 198 × 129mm HB £12.99 978 1 84708 664 8

‘Masterfully self-contained… compelling’ New York Times

the still point PB £7.99 978 1 84627 230 1

July

June

‘Lyrical and compelling... readers will be gripped from start to finish’ TLS



amy sackville was educated at the universities of Leeds, Oxford and London. Her first novel, The Still Point, was nominated for the Orange Prize and the Dylan Thomas Prize.

January

Dispatcher Mark Gevisser

February

A story of dispossession, a meditation on place, home and identity, and a deeply personal account of the social ills of South Africa and the triumph of its people.

A

March

s a boy growing up in 1970s Johannesburg Mark Gevisser would play ‘Dispatcher’, a game that involved sending imaginary couriers on routes across the City of Gold, mapped out from Holmden’s Register of Johannesburg. As the fleet made its way through neighbourhoods divided by apartheid, so too did the young dispatcher begin to figure out his own place in the world. When, many years later, Gevisser became the victim of a violent home invasion, he decided to return to the maps that defined his childhood, determined to reclaim his home town and to understand apartheid and its legacy.

April

Praise for A Legacy of Liberation: ‘Memorable and definitive’ André Brink, Daily Telegraph May

‘Irresistible’ Sunday Times

memoir £16.99 February Royal 234 × 153mm HB 384pp Selling Territories: NCR / NSA Rights: SL

‘An impressive feat of journalism... his narrative leaps off the page’ New York Times

Agent: David Godwin Associates 978 1 84708 858 1 (TPB) 978 1 84708 859 8 (Ebook)

June

© James Oatway, Panos



July

mark gevisser is the author of A Legacy of Liberation, which won the Sunday Times 2008 Alan Paton Prize. He currently writes for the Guardian (UK) and the Mail & Guardian and the Sunday Times (South Africa). He is an Open Society Fellow 2013–2014.

January

Children of Paradise Fred D’Aguiar This gripping novel from an award-winning writer draws on true events to tell the story of a child trapped in a religious community spiralling towards disaster.

March

February

T

rina hardly remembers the childhood she lost when she and her mother joined the Jonestown community. Singled out by their all-powerful leader, Trina discovers that the gaze of the Preacher can be a dangerous thing. As his behaviour and the demands he places on his followers become ever more extreme, Trina and her mother begin to dream of an escape from this supposedly perfect society. fiction £12.99 February Demy 216 × 135mm TPB 304pp Selling Territories: NCR

Rights: SL Agent: David Higham Associates 978 1 84708 861 1 (TPB) 978 1 84708 863 5 (Ebook)

With lyricism and compassion, D’Aguiar skilfully re-imagines one of the most shocking religious tragedies in modern American history.

Praise for Fred D’Aguiar:

April

‘One of the most powered, vital and innovative writers we have’ Ali Smith

Feeding The Ghosts Fred D’Aguiar

May

An unforgettable testimony to the struggle against oblivion, and a reminder of history overlooked and truth distorted.

I

nspired by a true story, this compelling and haunting novel chronicles an incident of courage and rebellion that took place aboard a disease-riddled slave ship returning from Africa, and tells the story of Mintah, the young woman at the heart of the uprising.

June

‘A novel of great power and beauty… compelling’ Barry Unsworth, Sunday Times

July

fiction £8.99 February B format 198 × 129mm PB 240pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: David Higham Associates

978 1 84708 864 2 (PB) 978 1 84708 865 9 (Ebook) previously published: September 1998 BPB Vintage / Random House

Poet, novelist and playwright fred d’aguiar was born in London in 1960 to Guyanese parents. He has published nine collections of poetry and four novels, including Bethany Bettany (2003). He is currently Professor of English at Virginia Tech.



January

Field Notes from a Hidden City An Urban Nature Diary

‘An illuminating, humane and informative companion in the great tradition of the finest nature writing’ Scotland on Sunday

Esther Woolfson

February

A beautifully written and thought-provoking record of a year spent observing the natural world in a city, from the author of Corvus: A Life with Birds.

Field Notes From a Hidden City An Urban Nature Diary

‘A beautiful book’ The Times

esther woolfson is the author of Corvus: A Life with Birds. Her acclaimed short stories have appeared in many anthologies and have been read on Radio 4.

Esther Woolfson FIELD NOTES B 25MARCH.indd 1

corvus: a life with birds PB £8.99 978 1 84708 080 6

25/03/2013 18:20

wildlife £8.99 February B format 198 × 129mm PB 368pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: US, TN, SL Agent: Jenny Brown Associates

978 1 84708 276 3 (PB) 978 1 84708 757 7 (Ebook)

travel / history £9.99 February B format 198 × 129mm PB 336pp Selling Territories: NCR Agent: PFD 978 1 84708 583 2

previously published: April 2003 B format 198 × 129mm PB £9.99 978 1 86207 583 2

March

‘Illuminating, humane and informative’ Scotland on Sunday

previously published: March 2013 200 × 156mm HB £16.99 978 1 84708 275 6

April

Stone Voices The Search For Scotland

Neal Ascherson A revised edition of Ascherson’s multi-layered appraisal of the many histories and identities of Scotland.

May

A

scherson is one of Britain’s finest writers. In Stone Voices, the story of his return to his native Scotland, he weaves together geology and archaeology, myth and legend with the story of modern Scotland and its rebirth.

‘Absorbing and beautifully written’ Spectator

July

neal ascherson has written for the Scotsman, the Observer and the Independent on Sunday. His previous books include The Nazi Legacy, The Struggle for Poland and Black Sea.

June

‘Intelligent and robust’ Observer



January

Dept.

Of

Speculation

February

Jenny Offill The long-awaited new novel from an LA Times First Fiction Prize finalist, Dept. of Speculation is an electrifying account of marriage and motherhood, love and madness.

March

‘They used to send each other letters.The return address was always the same: Dept. of Speculation.’

hey used to be young, brave, and giddy with hopes for their future. They got married, had a child, and they were happy.

But then, slowly, quietly something changed.

Written with the dazzling lucidity of poetry, the Dept. of Speculation navigates the jagged edges of a modern marriage to tell a story that is poignant and funny, surprising and wise.

April

T

‘Offill is a master of form and feeling, and she gets life on the page in new, starting ways’ Sam Lipsyte

May

‘Funny, and moving, and true’ Michael Cunningham ‘This is a brilliant, soulful elegy to the hardships and joys of married life… Heartbreaking and exceptional’ Lydia Millet

978 1 84708 873 4 (HB) 978 1 84708 875 8 (Ebook)

jenny offill is the author of Last Things (Bloomsbury, 1999) which was chosen as a notable or best book of the year by the Guardian, the New York Times and the Village Voice and was a finalist for the LA Times First Fiction Prize. She lives in Brooklyn.

© Michael Lionstar

July

June

fiction £11.99 March B format 198 × 129mm HB 192pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: Greene & Heaton



January

The French Intifada

The Long War Between France and Its Arabs February

Andrew Hussey An absorbing, vivid account of the tortured relationship between France and its excolonies, from the first days of Empire to today.

I

March

n the deprived banlieues of France’s cities, a guerrilla war is raging between the French state and the former subjects of its Empire, for whom the mantra of ‘liberty, equality, fraternity’ conceals a bitter history of domination, oppression and brutality.

April

Against the backdrop of the Arab Spring, Andrew Hussey walks the frontlines of this war – from the Gare du Nord in Paris to the souks of Marrakesh and the mosques of Algiers – to tell the strange and complex story of the relationship between France and the Muslim world of North Africa.

Praise for Paris: The Secret History: ‘Outrageously readable... a fascinating riot of a book’ Simon Sebag-Montefiore history £25.00 March Royal 234 × 156mm HB 386pp TBC 8pp B&W plate section Selling Territories: ALL

‘Masterly. Fragments of sinister trivia and captivating alternative histories bob up on every page’ Independent on Sunday

Rights: n/a Agent: Wylie Agency 978 1 84708 147 6 (HB) 978 1 84708 594 8 (Ebook)

May

‘Magnificent and entertaining’ Observer

June July

andrew hussey obe is Dean of the University of London Institute in Paris, a regular contributor to the Guardian and the New Statesman, and the presenter of several BBC documentaries. He is the author of The Game of War: The Life and Death of Guy Debord and Paris: The Secret History.



January

Leaving the Sea February

Ben Marcus The astonishing new short story collection from the author of The Flame Alphabet.

W

March

elcome to a world of distortion where strange illnesses strike at random and people disappear without a trace.

From the washed-up creative writing teacher to the advocate of self-inhumation; from Paul, whose homecoming leads him further into darkness, to Edward, who has been called to the evacuation, and a disturbed savant who spends his lonely evenings calculating the probabilities of his mother’s death.

April

Dark, funny and utterly original, Leaving the Sea is a labyrinth of stories from one of the most innovative and exhilarating writers of our time Praise for The Flame Alphabet:

May

‘It’s become impossible to imagine the literary world without Marcus’s daring, mind-bending and heartbreaking writing’ Jonathan Safran Foer 978 1 84708 635 8 (HB) 978 1 84708 637 2 (Ebook)

previously published: the flame alphabet PB £8.99

‘One of the most powerful works of fiction I have ever read’ Scotsman

June

fiction £14.99 March Demy 216 × 138mm HB 240pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL (2nd) Agent: Greene and Heaton

July

ben marcus was born in Chicago in 1967 and educated at New York University and Brown University.

His writing has been published in Granta, the New Yorker and the Paris Review. He is the author of The Age of Wire and String, Notable American Women and The Flame Alphabet.



January

The Letter Bearer Robert Allison February

Set in the North African desert during the Second World War, this is a stunning British debut about wrongdoing in extreme conditions, and the meaning of identity, comradeship and survival.

T

March

he Rider has no memory of who he is, or how he came to be lying – dying – in the brutal heat of the North African desert.

Rescued by a band of deserters, the Rider begins to piece together his identity, based on shards of recollection and the letters in his post bag.

April

The Letter Bearer is a gripping story about trauma, warfare and the experience of desertion that asks us to consider how men build hope when they have nothing left – not even a name.

May July

robert allison has been a theatre director, a film and music reviewer and a copy-editor. He lives in London.

Rights: SL Agent: Curtis Brown 978 1 84708 823 9 (HB) 978 1 84708 824 6 (Export TPB) 978 1 84708 825 3 (Ebook)

June

fiction £14.99 / £10.99 March Royal 234 × 156mm HB/Export TPB 272pp Selling Territories: ALL

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January

The Road to Middlemarch

February

Rebecca Mead A celebration of George Eliot’s life, work and greatest novel, exploring through a mixture of literary biography, deep reading and personal memoir how Middlemarch answers fundamental questions about life and love.

March

R

April

ebecca Mead was a young woman when she first read Middlemarch, and she has read it many times since, interpreting and discovering it anew. In The Road to Middlemarch she writes passionately about her relationship to this remarkable, much-loved Victorian novel, and shows how we can live richer and more fulfilling lives through our profound engagement with great literary works.

May

Interweaving readings of Middlemarch with an investigation of George Eliot’s life and Mead’s reflections on her own youth, relationships and marriage, this is a sensitive work of deep reading and biography, for every ardent lover of literature who cares about why we read books and how they read us.

Advance praise:

Rights: SL Agent: The Robbins Office 978 184708 515 3 (HB) 978 1 84708 746 1 (Ebook)

‘A singular and inventive tale about her favourite book, and how it has changed – and changed her – over many years of reading and re-reading. I adored it’ Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love

June

biography / memoir £18.99 March Short Royal 200 × 156mm HB 304pp Selling Territories: NCR / NANZ

‘A wise, humane and delightful study’ Harold Bloom

July

Born in London and educated at Oxford and New York University, rebecca mead has been a staff writer at the New Yorker since 1997. She lives in Brooklyn.

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January

We’re Flying Peter Stamm

Translated from the German by Michael Hofmann

February

Shortlisted for the 2013 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, this coolly arresting collection charts with extraordinary precision the impulses that determine the course of ordinary lives.

‘A winning collection. Stamm’s voice is original, assured and utterly beguiling’ Daily Mail

peter stamm was born in Switzerland. He is the author of several novels, most recently the highly acclaimed Seven Years. michael hofmann has translated Franz Kafka, Joseph Roth and Hans Fallada.

seven years PB £8.99 978 1 84708 510 8

fiction £8.99 March B format 198 × 129mm PB / Ebook 384pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: The Other Press 978 1 84708 768 3 (PB) 978 1 84708 767 6 (Ebook)

previously published: April 2013 B format 198 × 129mm HB £14.99 978 1 84708 766 9

March

‘Extraordinary... [Stamm] can make the ordinary absolutely electrifying’ Books of the Year, The Times

April

Running with the Pack Thoughts From the Road on Meaning and Mortality

Mark Rowlands

May

In this brilliant follow-up to The Philosopher and the Wolf, Mark Rowlands explores the intimate relationship

between running and thinking, and the meaning of life.

‘A lovely writer, funny and moving... If you’re of an optimistic bent, hopeful that life will offer up moments of wonder and delight, then Rowlands is your kind – my kind – of philosopher’ Observer

the philosopher and the wolf PB £8.99 978 1 84708 102 5

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philosophy / sports £8.99 March B format 198 × 129mm PB/Ebook 224pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: US, TN, SL Agent: Liz Puttick Agency 978 1 84708 263 3 (PB) 978 1 84708 556 6 (Ebook)

previously published : Mach 2013 Demy 216 × 135mm TPB £12.99 978 1 84708 202 2

July

mark rowlands is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Miami and the author of a dozen books, including the bestselling The Philosopher and the Wolf. rowlands.philospot.com

June

‘An inquiry into contemporary understanding of “what is important or valuable in life”... Rowlands’ provoking thoughts will certainly spur more exploration’ FT

January

Bodies of Light

February

Sarah Moss

From the acclaimed author of Night Waking comes a beautiful and nuanced historical novel about maternal failures, sibling affection and the everyday savagery of family.

A

April

March

lly is intelligent and studious and engaged in a losing battle to gain the affection of her mother, Elizabeth, a pioneering feminist who is keener on feeding the poor than on embracing the challenges of motherhood. Even when Ally wins a scholarship and is accepted as one of the first female students to read medicine in London, it still doesn’t seem good enough.

Bodies of Light is a deeply poignant tale of a psychologically tumultuous upbringing set in the atmospheric world of Pre-Raphaelitism and the early suffrage movement.

Praise for Night Waking:

May

‘Tartly humorous, sad and clever... a passionately written meditation on motherhood, with all the monotony, desperation and visceral feelings faithfully recorded’ Sunday Times

night waking PB £7.99 978 1 84708 270 1

‘Fresh and illuminating’ Guardian ‘Original and accomplished’ Daily Mail

sarah moss is the author of the memoir Names for the Sea: Strangers in Iceland, which was shortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize, and two novels, Cold Earth and Night Waking, which was selected for the Fiction Uncovered Award. She is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Warwick.

© Simon Burt

June

978 1 84708 916 8 (HB) 978 1 84708 910 6 (Export TPB) 978 1 84708 910 6 (Ebook)

July

fiction £14.99/£10.99 April Demy 216 × 138mm HB/Export TPB 272pp TBC Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: United Agents

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January

Living

a Wild With God Barbara Ehrenreich

February

A startling and haunting memoir from the bestselling author of Smile or Die and Nickel and Dimed.

B

March

arbara Ehrenreich was raised to question authority in all its forms. But when she was 17 she experienced an event so strange, and so at odds with her atheist, rationalist upbringing that she never spoke about it. Later in life she felt compelled to make sense of what had happened.

In this riveting narrative, she tells of her turbulent upbringing in 1950s America, leading up to most cataclysmic but most defining moment of her life.

April

As witty and fiercely intelligent as always, Ehrenreich also reveals a new lyricism and vulnerability here. She captures the brilliance and solipsism of adolescence, and sheds a surprising new light on science and religion.

‘Ehrenreich is unique. I know of no other living writer in English with [her] clarity, wit, wisdom and narrative power’ New Internationalist

May

‘Thank God for Barbara Ehrenreich’ Irish Independent

© Sigrid Estrada

Praise for Barbara Ehrenreich:

memoir / spirituality £18.99 April Demy 234 × 156mm HB 228pp Selling Territories: NCR

smile or die: how positive thinking fooled america and the world PB £8.99 978 1 84708 173 5

June

‘One of the great American reporters’ Polly Toynbee, Guardian

Rights: SL Agent: Curtis Brown / ICM 978 1 84708 409 5 (HB) 978 1 84708 739 3 (Ebook)

July

barbara ehrenreich is the author of fourteen books, including the bestselling Nickel and Dimed, Bait and Switch and Smile or Die. She lives in Virginia, USA.

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January

The Banner of the Passing Clouds Anthea Nicholson

fiction £8.99 April B format 198 × 129mm PB 304pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: United Agents

978 1 84708 743 0 (PB) 978 1 84708 744 7 (Ebook) previously published: April 2013 Demy 216 × 138mm HB £14.99 978 1 84708 756 0

April

March

February

An absorbing and original novel of politics, family ties and betrayal set in Georgia, USSR, from the 1950s to the 1990s. ‘[A] startling debut... by turns unsettling, wise and pierced with regret... A passionate humanism simmers between the lines as Nicholson weaves the story of 20th-century Georgia into one family’s drama... Nicholson’s writing is psychologically astute, and intense with insight’ Guardian

anthea nicholson is a writer and visual artist who lives between England and Tbilisi in Georgia. The Banner of the Passing Clouds is her first novel.

A Beautiful Truth Colin McAdam

May

A childless couple adopt a baby chimpanzee and find their family life changed for ever in this thrilling novel about our species, the meaning of family and the possibilities of love.

‘This is a serious, thoughtful piece of work’ Telegraph

July

June

‘Haunting. Heartbreaking… deftly told and beautifully rendered’ Will Ferguson, author of 419 fiction £7.99 May B format 198 × 129mm PB 304pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: United Agents 978 1 84708 850 5 (PB) 978 1 84708 849 9 (Ebook)

previously published: August 2013 Demy 216 × 138mm HB £15.99 978 1 84708 895 6

‘A story about love and beauty and our dreams for our children and our inescapable loneliness. The characters, human and animal, are sad and honest and true. I could not put this novel down’ Kim Echlin, author of The Disappeared

colin mcadam is the author of Some Great Thing (nominated for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize) and Fall (shortlisted for the Giller Prize).

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January

Underlands

A Personal Journey Through Britain’s Lost Landscape February

Ted Nield Journeying across the British Isles, geologist Ted Nield unearths the myriad ways in which the rocks beneath our feet shape our lives.

A

March

t one time, our roads, our buildings, our gravestones and our monuments were all built from rock mined locally, our cities powered by coal from Welsh mines, and our lamps lit with paraffin from Scottish shale. Today our mines are gone, our buildings are no longer local, and the flow of stone now travels from east to west.

April

Ted Nield journeys across Britain’s buried landscape – from the small Welsh village of his ancestors to Swansea, Aberdeen, Surrey and Dorset – unearthing the ties between stone and place and what their loss might mean for us today.

Praise for Incoming:

May

‘Richly explored and expertly explained’ Financial Times ‘Startling’ Daily Mail ‘A scrupulously researched and cleverly assembled gem of explanation and revelation’ Simon Winchester

© Richard H.Smith

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July

ted nield holds a doctorate in geology and is a member of the Meteoritical Society and a Fellow of the Geological Society of London, where he works as Editor of the monthly magazine Geoscientist. He is the author of Supercontinent and Incoming. He lives in London.

incoming PB £9.99 978 1 84708 264 0

June

natural history £20.00 May Royal 234 × 156mm HB 288pp TBC Selling Territories: NCR Rights: US, SL Agent: The Science Factory 978 1 84708 671 6 (HB) 978 1 84708 673 0 (Ebook)

January

The Luminaries

February

Eleanor Catton

March

Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, a multi-layered epic of interlinked mysteries set in New Zealand’s Hokitika goldfields in 1866 from one of the brightest stars in the international writing firmament, the award-winning author of The Rehearsal.

April

‘Sometimes – rarely – a novel arrives that is so good all you can do is shake your head in wonder.

Brilliant in design, masterful in execution, and intensely pleasurable to inhabit, The Luminaries is a masterpiece, the work of a writer of apparently limitless range and talent’ Peter Hobbs ‘Every now and then you get to read a novel that elevates you far beyond the bric-a-brac of everyday routine, takes you apart, reassembles you, and leaves you feeling as though you have been on holiday with a genius’ New Zealand Herald

May

‘The Luminaries blew me away. Such a wild, strange world, such unforgettable characters, all brought together with such devilish charm and ingenuity. A novel like this from a writer so young gives me hope for the future of the art form.

Stellar in every sense of the word’ Paul Murray

978 1 84708 432 3 (PB) 978 1 84708 593 1 (Ebook) previously published: September 2013 Royal 234 × 156mm HB £18.99

the rehearsal PB £7.99 978 1 84708 139 1

eleanor catton’s debut novel The Rehearsal won the 2009 Betty Trask Award, was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Dylan Thomas Prize, and longlisted for the Orange Prize.

© Robert Catto

July

June

fiction £9.99 April B format 198 × 129mm PB 848pp Selling Territories: NCR / NNZ / NSamoa Rights: US, SL Agent: United Agents

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January

City ParisSecrets: Edited by Robert Kahn

February

Writers, architects, chefs, artists, playwrights and many others recommend their favourite little-known places including restaurants, cafés, shops, markets, strolls, day-trips and all manner of cultural and historic landmarks.

C

March

ity Secrets: Paris brings together the recommendations of experts whose passionate opinions illuminate well-known sites as well as overlooked treasures. Clothbound, elegant and pocket-sized, City Secrets: Paris features a subtle design and detailed maps. With 150 contributors and over 200 venues, this is an indispensable resource for one of Europe’s most enchanting cities.

April

Praise for City Secrets: ‘Enough discoveries and insights to keep a native, let alone a visitor, tramping the streets for years’ Daily Telegraph

May

‘Endlessly fascinating’ Independent on Sunday

city secrets rome HB £12.99 978 0 98354 008 3

city manhattan HB £12.99 978 0 98354 007 6

July

robert kahn is editor of the City Secrets series and founding principal of Robert Kahn Architect. His work has been featured in Architectural Digest, Metropolitan Home, and the New York Times.

city secrets london HB £12.99 978 0 98354 006 9

June

travel £12.99 April 187mm × 110mm HB 384pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: Fang Duff Kahn 978 0 98354 008 3 (HB)

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January

The Faraway Nearby Rebecca Solnit

‘An exhilarating form of literary cartography, meandering through [diverse] subjects while always keeping us in touch with the people at the centre... She’s such a wonderful writer’ Financial Times

memoir / anti-memoir £8.99 May B format 198 × 129mm PB 272pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: Greene & Heaton / Hill Nadell 978 1 84708 512 2 (PB) 978 1 84708 733 1 (Ebook)

previously published: June 2013 Demy 216 × 138mm HB £16.99 978 1 84708 511 5

‘Gripping... Solnit deserves to be widely read here... she is the real thing’ Sara Wheeler, Observer

rebecca solnit is the author of, among other books, Wanderlust, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, the NBCC award-winning River of Shadows and A Paradise Built in Hell.

April

March

February

An inspiring and heartbreaking anti-memoir about family, empathy and the stories we tell about ourselves and others.

Badgerlands

The Twilight World of Britain’s Most Enigmatic Animal

Patrick Barkham May

The author of The Butterfly Isles turns his wry, affectionate attention to a beloved and controversial British animal – the badger.

nature writing £8.99 June B format 198 × 129mm PB 400pp b/w photos Selling Territories: NCR Rights: US, TN, SL Agent: Curtis Brown

978 1 84708 505 4 (PB) 978 1 84708 700 3 (Ebook) previously published: October 2013 200 × 156mm HB £18.99 978 1 84708 504 7

‘A superb work of natural history set in changing times. Enjoy it as you ponder on the problems of badgers and humans’ David Bellamy

the butterfly isles PB £9.99 978 1 84708 315 9

July

June

‘Hero, villain, icon, enigma, the badger is all these and more as this charming book reveals – a must-read for all Britain’s naturalists’ Chris Packham



patrick barkham is a features writer for the Guardian and the author of The Butterfly Isles.

He lives in Norfolk.

January

Indonesia Etc.

Taking Tea with the Dead and Other Island Adventures

Elizabeth Pisani February

Indonesia, in all its maddening glory, has captivated Elizabeth Pisani for 25 years.

Now she travels the islands from end to end, unfolding their breathtaking contradictions.

D

March

eclaring independence in 1945, Indonesia said it would ‘work out the details of the transfer of power etc. as soon as possible’.

It has been working on that ‘etc.’ ever since.

Indonesia is a raucous democracy of Facebook addicts and cultural traditionalists; the economy is booming, but the Sultan of Yogyakarta keeps a posse of albino dwarves for good luck and in some islands corpses still invite the neighbours to tea.

April

In her search for the essence of modern Indonesia, Pisani hunts crocodiles and rebels, deconstructs history, and analyses corruption. An informative and often funny book about the most overlooked mega-nation in the world.

Praise for The Wisdom of Whores:

May

‘An important and wise book...

Pisani tells [it] brilliantly... and she’s funny too’ Sunday Times

travel £18.99 June Royal 234 × 153mm HB/ Ebook 336pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL (second only)

‘A fascinating and revelatory account’ Observer

Agent: The Wylie Agency 978 1 84708 654 9 (HB) 978 1 84708 688 4 (Ebook)

the wisdom of whores PB £8.99 978 1 84708 076 9

June July

Epidemiologist elizabeth pisani was Indonesia correspondent for Reuters and the Economist from 1988 to 1991. She worked with the Ministry of Health from 2001 to 2005, and spent 2012 travelling the archipelago.

Elizabeth is the author of The Wisdom of Whores (Granta, 2008), an exploration of the HIV industry.



January

The Empathy Exams

February

Leslie Jamison

A powerful essay collection from an LA Times Book Award finalist centred around themes of confession, illness, violence and sentimentality.

T

March

he subjects of this stylish and audacious collection of essays range from an assault in Nicaragua to a Morgellons meeting; from Frida Kahlo’s plaster casts to a gangland tour of LA. Jamison is interested in how we tell stories about injury and pain, and the limits that circumstances, bodies and identity put on the act of describing.

April

Praise for The Gin Closet: ‘Exquisitely beautiful. Jamison writes like a poet, her imagery breathtaking, her sentences unfurling unpredictably, to the novel’s devastating end’ San Francisco Chronicle

May

‘A keenly felt exploration of love’s more complex geometries’ Vogue

leslie jamison grew up in Los Angeles and was educated at Harvard College and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She is currently studying for a PhD at Yale University. Her first novel, The Gin Closet, was published in 2010.

© Kiki Petrosino

July

June

essays £12.99 June Demy 216 × 135mm TPB 240pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL (second only) Agent: The Wylie Agency 978 1 84708 839 0 (TPB) 978 1 84708 841 3 (Ebook)

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January

Young God Katherine Faw Morris February

What kind of daughter brings her father a prostitute?

N

March

ikki has been thirteen for ever. Nikki drives a stolen truck up the hill to her father’s trailer with a backpack full of pills, determined to make her way into his life: drug deals, pimp wars, chicken shit, ecstasy. But soon Nikki begins to learn what is required of her to survive – to prevail – in this world.

In spare, searing prose, this unforgettable debut novel shatters old myths of power and abuse, of male violence and female victimhood.

May

© Don Morris

April

fiction £12.99 June B format 198 × 129mm HB 208pp TBC Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL

Agent: Abner Stein / Gernert Company 978 1 84708 887 1 (HB) 978 1 84708 888 8 (Ebook)

June July

katherine faw morris is a native of northwest North Carolina. She studied at Columbia University and currently lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two pitbulls. Young God is her first novel.

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January

Subtle Bodies Norman Rush

‘Norman Rush is a master writer, every line of Subtle Bodies fizzes with a wry wisdom. It’s a privilege to enter his mind, to be entranced by his take on people, the universe, and the enterprise of living’ William Nicholson fiction £8.99 June B format 198 × 129mm PB 240pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: Wylie Agency 978 1 84708 781 2 (PB) 978 1 84708 782 9 (Ebook)

previously published: October 2013 216 × 135mm HB £14.99 978 1 84708 780 5

April

March

February

From a revered master of American fiction comes a lushly romantic and intelligent novel about friendship, funerals and the myths we employ to make sense of ourselves.

‘The way Norman Rush gets under the skins of the men and women who people his pages is a marvel. Subtle Bodies is moving, funny and alarmingly intimate’ Christopher Hope

Mortals Norman Rush

May

Mortals chronicles the misadventures of three expat Americans in Botswana, where nobody is exactly who they claim to be, and everyone is madly in love.

‘Dizzyingly readable’ Independent Books of the Year

fiction £9.99 June B format 198 × 129mm PB 736pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: Wylie Agency 978 1 84708 785 0 (PB) 978 1 84708 786 7 (Ebook)

previously published: July 2004 BPB Vintage Books / Random House

‘Exhilarating… vigorous and luminous.

Few books evoke so eloquently the state of love at its apogee’ New York Times

mating PB £8.99 978 1 84708 783 6

July

June

‘[A] striking success’ Guardian



norman rush is the author of Whites and Mating (winner of the National Book Award). His stories have appeared in the New Yorker and the Paris Review.

January

Words Will Break Cement The Passion of Pussy Riot

Masha Gessen February

The inside story of Pussy Riot, punk icons and Russian dissenters, and of their infamous trial and on-going global significance.

O

March

n 21 February 2012, five members of an obscure feminist post-punk collective called Pussy Riot staged a performance in a Moscow Cathedral. It lasted only 40 seconds but resulted in prison sentences for three of the performers and has turned Pussy Riot into one of the most well-known and important protest movements of recent times.

April

Investigative reporter and campaigner Masha Gessen has used her unique access to the band and those closest to them to explore the Pussy Riot protest, the ensuing global support movement, and the tangled and controversial trial of the band members.

May

biography £9.99 Spring 2014 B format 198 × 129mm TPB with flaps 144pp TBC Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: Penguin USA

978 1 84708 934 2 (TPB) 978 1 84708 935 9 (Ebook)

the man without a face PB £9.99 978 1 84708 423 1

June

© Tanya Sazansky

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July

masha gessen is a journalist and the author of several books including Blood Matters and The Man Without A Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin. She lives in Moscow.

Granta Magazine January – June 2014

January

Granta 126: do you remember

February

Edited by Sigrid Rausing we said had been a poem, the index ‘Ifofeverything first lines would have formed a pattern: ‘Do

you remember’, ‘Tell me if I remember wrong’, ‘There was that time’, ‘Wasn’t it funny when’.

Ann Beattie

March

weekend her father left – left the house, ‘The the town, the country, everything, packing so

lightly I believed he would come back – he said ‘You can raise Nickie by yourself. You’ll be good at it.’

And I had said, ‘Are you on crack?’ And he replied, continuing to fold a blue twill jacket, ‘Yes, a little.’

April

Lorrie Moore Paul yelled out. ‘Why’s everybody ‘Hey,’ talking behind the patient’s back?’

‘Shut up, we’re having sex,’ she called back. She poured a cup for herself. ‘He seems pretty chipper this morning.’

‘Yeah, I don’t know what to hope for,’ I said.

‘Quality, I guess. And then not too much quantity.’

July

June

May

David Gates And Abeer Ayyoub, Bernard Cooper, Laura Kasischke, Olivia Laing, Thomas McGuane, Colin McAdam, Katherine Faw Morris, Melinda Moustakis, Norman Rush, Edmund White and Joy Williams. sigrid rausing is Acting Editor and Publisher of Granta magazine and of Granta and Portobello Books. She is the author of History, Memory and Identity in Post Soviet Estonia: The End of a Collective Farm and Everything is Wonderful, forthcoming from Grove Atlantic in the US and Bonniers in Sweden.

£12.99 January 210 × 145 mm PB/EBook 256pp (TBC) Colour illustrations Colour photo section

Selling Territories: ALL Rights: Granta 978 1 90588 1 79 6 (PB) 978 1 90588 1 80 2 (Ebook)

© Stefano Leonardi / Millennium Images, UK



January

Granta Japan 127: Edited by Yuka Igarashi

H

May

‘The recent editions of Granta have all done what a good literary magazine should: showcase the newest by the best authors and the best by the newest authors’ Scotland on Sunday

April

Building on their expanding international partnerships, Granta Japan will be published in conjunction with the first Japanese-language edition of the magazine, with pieces shared and translated between Japanese and English. Both issues will be pre-launched at the Tokyo International Literary Festival in March 2014, and will spark new dialogue between two literary cultures.

March

ello Kitty, earthquakes, manga, samurai, robots and sushi. These are some of the things we think about when we think about Japan. This small island nation looms large in the popular imagination, in often contradictory ways: as the epitome of refinement and tradition, and as an embodiment of a shiny, soulless future.

What is Japan to those who really know it? This issue includes translated work from the most exciting Japanese writers today, alongside work in English.

February

Exploring a country beyond its clichés.

June

yuka igarashi is Managing Editor of Granta and lead editor of this issue.

© Tokyo, July 1996, Science’s museum Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt / Agence VU

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Selling Territories: ALL Rights: Granta 978 1 90588 1 78 9 (PB) 978 1 90588 1 77 2 (Ebook)

July

£12.99 April 210 × 145 mm PB/EBook 256 (TBC) colour illustrations colour photo section

Portobello Books July – December 2014

January

Christ’s Entry into Brussels

February

Dimitri Verhulst Translated from the Dutch by David Colmer

It’s Jesus. He’s coming back. To Brussels.

Get ready...

J

March

esus Christ is to visit Belgium in a few weeks’ time. In a flurry of anticipation, the residents of Brussels take to the streets, clearing up graffiti, planting flowers and publically atoning for their sins. Meanwhile, desperate for an interpreter, the city’s authorities turn to Ohanna, an eleven-yearold from the overflowing deportation centre, who may or may not speak Aramaic.

April

Narrated by an increasingly overwhelmed witness to the fervour surrounding Christ’s second coming, this is a pitch-black satire, a comic tour-de-force from a master of the literary surreal.

Praise for The Misfortunates:

fiction £12.99 February Demy 216 × 135mm TPB 192pp Selling Territories: NCR

Rights: US, SL Agent: Contact Publishers 978 1 84627 467 1 (HB/TPB/PB) 978 1 84627 468 8 (Ebook)

‘Outrageous [and] darkly intelligent’ Irish Times

the misfortunates PB £7.99 978 1 84627 159 5

‘This novel continually surprises and intrigues...

[Verhulst] produces something of exquisite tenderness’ Guardian

dimitri verhulst (b. 1972) is the author of many award-winning books in his native Dutch. Three of them, including The Mistfortunes and Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill, have previously been translated into English. His work is translated into two dozen languages worldwide.

© Nathalie De Clercq

July

June

May

‘Verhulst’s prose is always a delight... subtle and wonderfully told’ Financial Times



January

Brewster Mark Slouka February

The bestselling author of The Visible World returns with a stunning coming-of-age novel set in the year after the summer of love and the peak of the Vietnam War.

S

March

choolboy athlete John Mosher is determined to break free from the small town of Brewster in upstate New York.

When he meets Ray Cappicciano, a local legend in the making, he recognizes a friendship with the potential to save them both.

April

‘The dark undertow of Slouka’s prose makes Brewster instantly mesmerizing, a novel that whirls the reader into small-town, late 1960s America with mastery, originality and heart’ Jennifer Egan

May

‘Reading Brewster is like entering the very heart of a Bruce Springsteen song – all grace, all depth, all sinew. Slouka one of the great unsung writers of our time – has written a magnificent novel that woke my tired heart’ Colum McCann

previously published: August 2013 Demy 216 × 135mm TPB £12.99 978 1 84627 499 2

the visible world PB £7.99 978 1 84627 086 4

mark slouka is the author of a collection of stories, Lost Lake (a New York Times Notable Book) and two novels, God’s Fool and The Visible World.

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July

© Zack Slouka

June

fiction £7.99 March B format 198 × 129mm PB 288pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: WME 978 1 84627 500 5 (PB) 978 1 84627 501 2 (Ebook)

January

Charlie Chaplin’s Last Dance Translated from the Italian by Stephen Twilley

A brilliantly inventive novel about the final years of Charlie Chaplin’s life; a vivacious portrait of a comic legend and a love letter to the era of silent cinema.

I

t is Christmas Day when Charlie Chaplin receives his first visit from Death. Reluctant to face the final curtain, the actor strikes a deal: if he manages to make Death laugh, he will win an extra year of life. As he awaits his final fatal encounter, Chaplin looks back on his past, from his impoverished childhood in England to his stints in the circus, and his eventual success as a slapstick star of the silver screen.

April

March

February

Fabio Stassi

From a prize-winning Italian author, this literary gem is an irresistible read for anyone who loved The Artist.

Praise for Fabio Stassi:

May

‘Stassi is the most South American of Italian writers’ La Repubblica

Agent: Sellerio 978 1 84627 527 2 (TPB) 978 1 84627 529 6 (Ebook)

Born in 1962, fabio stassi is regarded as one of Italy’s most ambitious and talented literary writers. He lives in Viterbo and works in the Oriental Institute Library of the University of Rome. This is his first novel to be published in English.

© Basso Cannarsa

July

June

fiction £12.99 April Demy 216 × 135mm TPB 240pp TBC Selling Territories: NCR Rights: US, SL

‘With the arrival of Fabio Stassi, our literature has become richer’ Liberazione

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January

Kolyma Diaries

A Journey into Russia’s Haunted Hinterland

Jacek Hugo-Bader Translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones

February

Sixty years on from the closure of the Siberian Gulag, who lives in this misbegotten land?

T

March

hose sent to the Kolyma Valley by Stalin rarely returned, and indeed rarely survived. Travelling along the 2000 kilometres of the Kolyma highway, Hugo-Bader is warmed by the hospitality (and the vodka) of the inhabitants of this inhospitable place. He hears stories of sons given away, husbands who reappear after three decades, scholars who now survive by foraging for mushrooms and berries, miners who dig up mass graves while looking for gold, and all the addicts, convicts, fallen heroes and even sportsmen who run away from their troubles and end up at the end of the world.

April

reportage £18.99 April Demy 210 × 148mm HB 240pp TBC 40 b/w photos Selling Territories: NCR Rights: US, SL

‘Funny, enlightening and thoroughly engaging’ FT

Agent: Czarne 978 1 84627 502 9 (HB) 978 1 84627 503 6 (Ebook)

white fever PB £9.99 978 1 84627 270 7

June

‘A compelling portrait of a society in moral and social breakdown’ Guardian

May

‘Comparisons with Kapuściński are inevitable. I think he is just as good, if not better’ Sunday Times

© Jacek Hugo-Bader

Praise for White Fever:

© Lydia Sokal



July

Born in 1957, jacek hugo-bader is a Polish journalist for the leading daily paper, Gazeta Wyborcza. He is a former special needs teacher, loader of trucks, weigher of pigs, and counsellor of troubled couples. He lives in Warsaw.

January

Nightwork Jáchym Topol

February

Translated from the Czech by Marek Tomin

A surreal and darkly comic Czech comingof-age story set in a turbulent village during the Russian occupation.

O

April

March

ne night in 1968, on the eve of the Soviet invasion, 13-year-old Ondrej and his younger brother Kamil are bundled into a coach bound for their father’s birthplace, a mountainous, forested village in northern Bohemia.

But when they arrive it becomes clear that this escape promises its own perils, and the boys find themselves stranded in a rural community riven with petty suspicion and stained by prejudice.

Growing up in this dark, chaotic landscape, the two boys struggle to make a home for themselves, until a series of unexplained deaths push them to make bold decisions to ensure their survival.

Praise for Gargling with Tar: ‘[Topol is] the Martin Amis-cum-Irvine Welsh of the post-1989 transition’ Boyd Tonkin

May

‘Topol is one of the most rated writers in Prague’ Tibor Fischer, Guardian Rights: US, SL Agent: Suhrkamp Verlag 978 1 84627 163 2 (TPB) 978 1 84627 541 8 (Ebook)

gargling with tar PB £8.99 978 1 84627 162 5

‘Topol [writes] with bracing irreverence as well as pity’ Independent

jchym topol is an award-winning writer who was famous in his youth as an underground poet, songwriter and journalist. His novels include Gargling with Tar and The Devil’s Workshop, which won an English PEN Award.

© David Port

July

June

fiction £12.99 May Demy 216 × 135mm TPB 320pp TBC Selling Territories: NCR



January

The Devil’s Workshop Jáchym Topol

Translated from the Czech by Alex Zucker

February

A disturbing black comedy about the horrors of history, the commodification of the past, and the dark edges of the present.

S

et between the former Nazi concentration camp of Terezín and the forgotten mass graves in Minsk, The Devil’s Workshop is a story of greed, tourism and the commodification of extermination from one of the Czechs’ funniest and most audacious writers.

‘Humour... so treacly black it almost chokes you’ Jane Housham, Guardian

fiction £8.99 May B format 198 × 129mm PB 160pp Selling Territories: All Rights: All Agent: Suhrkamp Verlag 978 1 84627 418 3 (PB) 978 1 86207 940 3 (Ebook)

previously published: June 2013 Demy 216 × 135mm TPB £12.99 978 1 84627 417 6

fiction £7.99 May B format 198 × 129mm PB 288pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: The Cooke Agency 978 1 84627 113 7 (PB) 978 1 84627 511 1 (Ebook)

previously published: June 2013 B format 198 × 129mm HB £12.99 978 1 84627 112 0

April

jchym topol’s novels include Gargling with Tar and City Sister Silver.

He has been shortlisted for the European Literature Prize. He lives in Prague.

March

‘Startling, darkly comic, and deeply, deeply moving’ Lee Rourke

The Emperor of Paris CS Richardson

the end of the alphabet PB £6.99 978 1 84627 111 3



July

cs richardson’s first novel, The End of the Alphabet, was an international bestseller, won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book and was adapted for radio by BBC Radio 3.

June

‘I adore this book. It is fragile and beautiful. It aches with romance’ Katie Ward, author of Girl Reading

© Curtis Lantinga

O

ctavio is an illiterate Parisian baker with the secret recipe for the perfect baguette. Isabeau is a dreamer, burying herself in stories and the paintings she restores at the Louvre. Then a curious chain of coincidences brings them together.

May

From the author of The End of the Alphabet comes a magical story of Paris and an unlikely romance.

February

Drugs 2.0

The Web Revolution That’s Changing How the World Gets High

Mike Power March

An eye-opening investigation of the new and constantly mutating global drug culture that is driven by social networking and rogue chemistry, and enabled by antiquated laws.

non-fiction £9.99 May B format 198 × 129mm PB 320pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: US, TN, SL Agent: David Higham Associates 978 1 84627 460 2

(PB) 978 1 84627 461 9 (Ebook) previously published: May 2013 Royal 234 × 153mm TPB £14.99 978 1 84627 459 6

May

April

‘Power is a sure guide through this cyberworld, with its torrent of new tablets, capsules and powders’ Daily Telegraph ‘Fascinating and vividly written’ Guardian ‘Astonishing’ Observer mike power has worked as a freelance journalist for the Guardian, the Mail on Sunday, the Sunday Herald, DrugScope and the Big Issue. This is his first book.

Strange Weather in Tokyo

Hiromi Kawakami June

Translated from the Japanese by Allison Markin Powell

An award-winning novel from one of Japan’s most exciting literary voices: an immaculate and touching story of modern Tokyo and old-fashioned romance

T

August

July

sukiko is in her late 30s and living alone when one night she meets one of her old schoolteachers, ‘Sensei’, in a bar. As their friendship blossoms, Tsukiko comes to realise that this solace might be something more. fiction £7.99 June B format 198 × 129mm PB 192pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL (second only) Agent: The Wylie Agency 978 1 84627 510 4 (PB) 978 1 84627 509 8 (Ebook)

previously published: August 2013 978 1 84627 508 1 £10.99

‘A dream-like spell of a novel’ Amy Sackville ‘I’m hooked... how can a person resist?’

Lorin Stein, Paris Review hiromi kawakami is one of Japan’s most popular contemporary novelists, famous for her offbeat literary fiction. This novel was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize 2013. 

portobello backlist

behind the beautiful forevers 978 1 84627 451 0 £9.99

africa 978 1 84627 155 7 £9.99

visitation 978 1 84627 190 8 £7.99

the appointment 978 1 84627 376 6 £7.99

cruel britannia 978 1 84627 334 6 £9.99

the still point 978 1 84627 230 1 £7.99



granta backlist

map of a nation 978 1 84708 254 1 £9.99

the sisters brothers 978 1 84708 319 7 £7.99

stasiland 978 1 84708 335 7 £9.99

leaving the atocha station 978 1 84708 691 4 £7.99

the butterfly isles 978 1 84708 315 9 £9.99

the philosopher and the wolf 978 1 84708 102 5 £8.99



londoners 978 1 84708 329 6 £9.99

the wild places 978 1 84708 018 9 £9.99

seven days in the art world 978 1 84708 084 4 £9.99

nothing to envy 978 1 84708 141 4 £9.99

somewhere towards the end 978 1 84708 069 1 £7.99

may we be forgiven 978 1 84708 323 4 £8.99



Index A

G

O

Adrian, Chris 6 Alexandria 7 Ascherson, Neal 13

Gessen, Masha 31 Gevisser, Mark 11 Gob’s Grief 6 Granta 126: do you remember 34 Granta 127: Japan 35

Offill, Jenny 14 Orkney 10

B Badgerlands 26 Baggini, Julian, 4 Banner of the Passing Clouds,

The 22 Barkham, Patrick 26 Beautiful Truth, A 22 Bloom, Amy 24 Bodies of Light 20 Brewster 39 C

Catton, Eleanor 24 Charlie Chaplin’s Last Dance 40 Children of Paradise 12 Christ’s Entry into Brussels 38 City Secrets: Paris 25 D

D’Aguiar, Fred 12 Day of the Owl, The 8 Demick, Barbara 7 Dept. of Speculation 14 Devil’s Workshop, The 43 Dig, The 5 Dispatcher 11 Drugs 2.0 44 E

Ehrenreich, Barbara 21 Empathy Exams, The 28 Emperor of Paris, The 44 Equal Danger 8 F

Faraway Nearby, The 26 Faw Morris, Katherine 29 Feeding the Ghosts 12 Field Notes from a Hidden City 13 French Intifada, The 15 Fun Parts, The 10

P

Pisani, Elizabeth 27 Power, Mike 44

H

Hugo-Bader, Jacek 41 Hussey, Andrew 15 I

Indonesia Etc. 27

R

Road to Middlemarch, The 18 Rowlands, Mark 19 Running with the Pack 19 Rush, Norman 30 S

J

Jamison, Leslie 28 Jones, Cynan 5 K

Kahn, Robert 25 Kawakami, Hiromi 44 Knight and Death,The and One Way

Or Another 9 Kolyma Diaries 41 L

Leaving the Sea 16 Letter Bearer, The 17 Lipsyte, Sam 10 Living with a Wild God 21 Lucky Us 24 Luminaries, The 24 M

McAdam, Colin 22 Marcus, Ben 16 Mead, Rebecca 18 Moro Affair, The 9 Mortals 30 Moss, Sarah 20 N

Nicholson, Anthea 22 Nield, Ted 23 Nightwork 42 Nothing to Envy 7 

Sackville, Amy 10 Sciascia, Leonardo 89 Secrecy 6 Sicilian Uncles 8 Slouka, Mark 39 Stamm, Peter 19 Stassi, Fabio 40 Stone Voices 13 Strange Weather in Tokyo 44 Subtle Bodies 30 Stothard, Peter 7 T

Thomson, Rupert 6 Topol, Jáchym 42, 43 U

Underlands 23 V

Verhulst, Dimitri 38 Virtues of the Table, The 4 W

We’re Flying 19 Wine Dark Sea, The 9 Woolfson, Esther 13 Words Will Break Cement 31 Y

Young God 29

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January – June 2014