Harper Inks Osondu For Two

Tim Duggan, executive editor at HarperCollins, has signed Nigerian author E.C. Osondu to a two-book deal. Duggan took North American rights to a short story collection, called Voice of America, and a novel, called This House Is Not for Sale, by the Providence College professor who won the Caine Prize for African Writing and has a Syracuse University M.F.A. The short story collection follows a variety of characters moving between Nigeria and the U.S., and Duggan described the novel as “a multigenerational saga centered around a Nigerian king and his court in Lagos.” Jin Auh, of the Wylie Agency, brokered the deal.

Atria Gets Goodman

Amy E. Goodman,Today Show (and InStyle) contributor, sold her fashion and beauty book to Atria. Senior editor and v-p of the Simon & Schuster imprint, Greer Hendricks, took world rights at auction to the currently untitled book, aimed at “real women.” Judy Linden, of Stonesong Press, packaged the title and brokered the deal. Linden also packaged Today Show beauty expert Charla Krupp’s 2008 New York Times bestseller How Not to Look Old; S&S thinks Goodman’s book will have similar market appeal. Atria is planning a spring 2011 publication.

Moceanu’s Gymnasts

Christian Trimmer at Disney-Hyperion took world English rights to a four-book middle-grade series called the Elite Gymnasts by Dominique Moceanu and Alicia Thompson. Agent Laura Langlie brokered the deal for former Olympian Moceanu—who at 14 became the youngest medalist in women’s gymnastics—and author Thompson, whose debut novel, Psych Major Syndrome, was published by Disney-Hyperion in August. The series, which follows four Olympic hopefuls training in Texas, is planned for April 2012, just before the London Olympics gets underway.

Quixote, in Translation

Scott Mendel, of Mendel Media Group, closed two deals for a new translation of Don Quixote by Cervantes scholar Thomas Lathrop. Mendel sold North American rights to Tracy Bernstein at Signet North America and U.K./Commonwealth rights to Alex Gallenzi at Oneworld Classics. The editions are slated to pub around the upcoming celebration of the 400th anniversary of the first English-language translation of the canonical Spanish novel, which originally appeared in 1612. Lathrop, who teaches at the University of Delaware, has been working on the translation for more than a decade, according to Mendel, who said this edition is unique because it is an “entirely new work from the ground up... made entirely from the original text, unlike many of the recent translations of Don Quixote.”

Pigeon Double Deals

Bob Pigeon, at Da Capo, has closed two deals—one for a biography of Patrick Henry, and the other for a history of the burning of Ancient Rome. Edward Knappman, of New England Publishing Associates, sold world rights to Harlow Giles Unger’s A Passion for Liberty, about then controversial states’ rights advocate (and first governor of Virginia), Patrick Henry; Da Capo is planning a September 2010 release. Richard Curtis sold world rights to Stephen Dando-Collins’s The Great Fire of Rome. Dando-Collins (Tycoon’s War) slices fact from myth in his book about the famous blaze that hit the city in 64 C.E.; he also reveals the truth behind the tale that (emperor) Nero sang while the city burned. Fire is also slated for September 2010.