After putting my assistant, Lettie Ransley, in charge of submissions to Greek publishers, she has negotiated three new deals in one week!
Kedros has now bought Greek rights to John Boyne’s new novel, MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY! Rights previously sold to Salamandra in Spain, where they’ve sold over 1 million copies of “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas” and it was awarded the prestigious “Que Leer” Prize as the best novel to be translated into Spanish in 2007; S. Fischer Verlag in Germany, where Shatzinsel (the young adult imprint of S. Fischer) sold over 50,000 copies of “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas” and it is shortlisted for the prestigious 2008 Deutschen Jugend Literatur Preis in Germany! The winner will be announced at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair in October. MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY is also sold to Rizzoli/Italy, Grup 62/Catalan, Arena/The Netherlands, Alnari/Serbia, St. Martin’s Press/USA, and Doubleday/Canada. And now also in Brazil to Companhia das Letras. Transworld just published in the UK and the hardcover is selling strong and getting great reviews, affirming John Boyne as one of the world’s most brilliant storytellers. Meanwhile, the first press about the Miramax/Heyday film which will be released on September 12th appeared in a Daily Mail column last week, “As producer David Heyman says, the film sneaks up on you and ends with a wallop. The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas will, I strongly believe, emerge as one of the best films of 2008.” You can read the full “Watch out for” paragraph and see a photograph of young star, Asa Butterfield, at this link. I think “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas” is one of the most sensitive and powerful book-to-film adaptations I’ve ever seen and it is certain to draw even more readers to John Boyne’s novels. The total worldwide sales of “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas” has now passed 2.5 million copies and rights have been sold in 36 languages!
First translation deal for WHERE UNDERPANTS COME FROM is a Greek pre-empt from Oceanida! Joe Bennett’s wonderfully witty and uniquely illuminating window into contemporary China is now published by S&S UK and is a big bestseller in New Zealand, overtaking “The Secret” and “The Last Lecture” to be #1 on the NZ International Non-fiction List! There was a great review in The Financial Times:
“Amazed that anyone can sell a five-pack of underpants in a New Zealand supermarket for less than $10 and make a profit, Joe Bennett follows his purchase back to its source: China, in the midst of an economic boom. After posing as a buyer in Shanghai and touring the factories in Quanzhou where his pants were made, he tracks down the raw material itself in the cotton fields around Urumqi, thousands of miles away in western China. At every step, Bennett discovers large-scale industry powered by cheap labour and an insatiable thirst for commerce. He admits that he initially knew nothing about China, arguing that the west is generally ignorant of the country that now provides so many of its clothes. As much a piece of travel writing as it is an overview of the political and economic climate in China, Where Underpants Come From is a fascinating and personal account of a country undergoing rapid change.” Hopefully Oceanida’s Greek pre-empt is the first of many more!
Oceanida also pre-empted Greek rights to THE LUMINOUS LIFE OF LILLY APHRODITE! Oceanida is truly an excellent publisher whose fiction authors include Margaret Atwood, John Banville, Sebastian Faulks and Tracy Chevalier. We’re thrilled that Beatrice Colin will now join this fantastic list, and it’s great to add Greece to the Italian (Neri Pozza) and Dutch (Q/Querido) pre-empts I accepted for THE LUMINOUS LIFE OF LILLY APHODITE on an early version of the manuscript last year. Riverhead/US and John Murray/UK will publish as a lead summer hardcover in August and with great advance praise from David Ebershoff, Sheri Holman, Emma Donoghue, Jennifer Gilmore, Publisher’s Weekly (see my post-LBF posting below), I’m sure Beatrice Colin’s heartbreakingly beautiful novel will continue captivating publishers across Europe. THE LUMINOUS LIFE OF LILLY APHRODITE is one of the most imaginative, vibrant, and daring works of historical fiction, and featuring the most intriguing heroine, I’ve read since Michel Faber’s “The Crimson Petal and the White”.
