Swedish Novel Snapped Up in Pre-empts
The women’s fiction novel The Red Address Book has sold in a succession of preempts to Goldmann (Germany), Cappelen Damm (Norway), Calmann-Lévy (France) and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (in the U.S.). The book, written by Sofia Lundberg and represented by the Salomonsson Agency, will be published by Forum in Sweden in the fall. The novel follows a 96-year-old woman named Doris, who lives alone in Stockholm, and finds her greatest joy Skyping with her grandniece, Jenny. With Jenny in mind, Doris decides to write down her memories of the people she has loved throughout her life.
German's Debut Moves to U.K., and Beyond
The Spirit of Montgomery by Daniela Tully, represented by the Pontas Agency, has just sold to Legend Press for U.K. and Commonwealth rights (excluding Canada). Deals have also been made with Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s Press (U.S.), Fayard (France), and Garzanti (Italy). The novel, which the agency compared to the work of Kate Morton (The House at Riverton and The Lake House), is Tully's debut. (Tully, who works in the film industry and has an American husband, wrote the book in English.) In the novel, a German woman whose grandmother disappeared decades ago is pulled back into the mystery surrounding the disappearance when her grandmother's body is discovered in New York. The book has not yet sold in Germany.
South African 'Spy' Novel Draws Bids
In another deal for the Pontas Agency, the South African novel A Spy in Time, was acquired by Indian publisher Speaking Tiger (for the Indian sub-continent and Southeast Asia). Random House South Africa, the originating publisher, will be releasing the book in 2018. A literary time-travel-dystopian novel, Pontas said the work depicts a world in which “fair-skinned people are a rarity." In this future world, the fair-skinned work "as acrobats and jugglers, or apply skin-darkening creams to conceal their condition.”
Spanish Book on Refugees Sells in Poland
We Are Not Refugees by Agus Morales has just sold to Polish publisher Wydawnictwo Poznańskie. The book is represented by Ella Sher of the Ella Sher Literary Agency and was originally published in Spain in March by Círculo de Tiza. The agency said the book is a work of personal reportage about the new “world of exodus.” The author traveled to Syria, Afghanistan and other places marked by violence to create portraits of displaced people and their plight.
