Suddenly there seems to be a surge of interest in foreign fiction, notably from France and Japan. Following Knopf's recent buy of a pair of wartime French novels and Dutton's acquisition of a Japanese bestseller comes news of two further deals involving authors from those countries. Harcourt's Jenna Johnson bought rights to Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow by a 19-year-old French-Arab girl, Faiza Guene, that has been a major seller in France. It tells the story of a girl much like herself, growing up in one of the towering housing projects that ring Paris, yet manages to be lighthearted. Johnson bought it from Matt Seidel at the French Publishers Agency in New York on behalf of French publisher Hachette and will publish it in spring 2006 as a Harvest trade paper original.
Meanwhile, a young editor at Picador,
Amber Qureshi, bought a pair of books, a novel and a collection of novellas, by award-winning Japanese author
Yoko Ogawa, who had a story in the New Yorker this summer. The novel,
Hotel Iris, is about a bizarre sexual relationship between an older man and the young daughter of a hotel owner in a small seaside town. This was bought for North American rights from
Anna Stein at Donadio & Olson, and will also be published in trade paper, in a line of original translations Picador is launching in 2006.
