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Portobello Books July – December 2014
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Contents GRANTA
Noontide Toll Reef The Dig The Long Dry Everything I Found on the Beach Bulletproof Vest The Private Life Happiness, Like Water Everything is Happening Lucky Us 33 Artists in 3 Acts Rising Ground Forty-One False Starts A Short Stop on the Road From Auschwitz Severed Swansong 1945 The Emerald Light in the Air Wanderlust
GRANTA MAGAZINE
6 7 8 8 9 10 11 11 12 13 14 15 16
Granta 128: American Wild Granta 129: Autumn issue STONEGATE
The Magic of the Mask
Deep Sea and Foreign Going The Memory Palace The 13th Labour of Hercules A Meal in Winter Cristina and Her Double The End of Days
17 18 19 20 21
29
32 32 33 34 34 35
Selling Territories Serial rights Translation rights US rights
ncr nanz nnz nsa nea nsin nmyl ngr
Formats hb tpb pb ome
PORTOBELLO
Rights sl tn us
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Hardback Trade Paperback Paperback Open Market Edition
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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 No Greece rights
Granta Books Brings Home Gold in 2013 Winner of the Man Booker Prize
Winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize
Winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction
Prize-Winning Non-Fiction from Portobello Books in 2013 Guild of Food Writers Food Book of the Year Award
Winner of the Mountbatten Maritime Award
Winner of the Paddy Power / Total Politics Debut Political Book of the Year Award ďœł
Granta Books July – December 2014
July
Noontide Toll Stories
August
Romesh Gunesekera
A deeply humane and moving collection of interlinked stories set in post-conflict Sri Lanka, from the Booker-shortlisted author of Reef.
V
October
September
asantha is a van driver for hire, ferrying aid workers, returning exiles, and tentative entrepreneurs across the battle-scarred landscapes of Sri Lanka. The civil war is finally over, but the atrocities of the past still exist behind the facade of peace: mysterious hoteliers conceal scars under their collars; genial old soldiers are secretly identified as perpetrators of brutal war crimes; young Sinhalese men pine after Tamil girls whose brothers died by their hands. Though he keeps his own counsel, lingering on the periphery of his passengers’ stories, Vasantha cannot help but reveal a little of his own story too.
‘[He] writes with enormous compassion and insight, a tenderness that is infectious and forgiving’ Scotland on Sunday fiction £12.99 July Demy 216 × 135 mm TPB / Ebook 256pp Selling Territories: NIND Rights: SL Agent: A.M. Heath
978 1 78378 015 0 (TPB) 978 1 78378 016 7 (Ebook)
‘Romantic [and] mysterious... utterly engaging’ Marie Claire ‘Gunesekera confronts chaos with relaxed wit and elegance’ Sunday Telegraph
romesh gunesekera grew up in Sri Lanka and now lives in London. Reef, his debut novel, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1994. In 1997 he was awarded the prestigious Premio Mondello award in Italy. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2004.
© Yemisi Blake
January
December
November
Praise for Romesh Gunesekera:
July
Reef Romesh Gunesekera
August
The 20th anniversary edition of this haunting and elegiac love story set in a spoiled paradise, as relevant today as when it was first published.
A
September
lighted match banishes Triton from his father’s home to the employ of Mister Salgado, a marine biologist obsessed by swamps, sea movements and a Sri Lankan island’s disappearing reef. Stranded in London years later, Triton plumbs the depths of his childhood memories – a period of brewing political, ethical and religious turmoil – and brings us to understand how he navigated this brave new world, which will haunt him forever. A poignant tale of courage and lost innocence.
October
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE
‘A sensuous feast of delight, incessantly pleasurable’ The Times ‘A kind of Asian Tempest, drenched in the unreal, tropical colours of dream’ Guardian
previously published
£8.99 July 192pp B format 198 × 129mm Selling Territories: NIND Rights: US, SL Agent: A.M. Heath 978 1 78378 030 3 (PB) 978 1 84708 467 5 (Ebook)
February 1998 / September 2011 B format 198 × 129mm PB £6.99 / £7.99 978 1 86207 094 3 (1998) 978 1 84708 420 0 (2011)
monkfish moon PB £7.99 978 1 84708 418 7
the sandglass PB £7.99 978 1 84708 419 4
December
fiction
November
‘Dark as one of Graham Greene’s tropical undergrowths, funny in the way that Naipaul can be, evocative as Narayan, Reef is a thing of beauty’ Scotland on Sunday
January
July
Cynan Jones
The Dig August
From a rising star of British fiction, a short, searing novel set in rural Wales in which a grieving farmer struggles to keep his life from falling apart.
September
‘Jones astutely marries his dispassionate landscape prose with a brittle emotional economy... remarkable’ Literary Review ‘Frequently stellar... There is no doubt that he is one of the most talented writers in Britain’ Independent on Sunday
fiction £7.99 November 176pp 198 × 129 mm PB Selling territories: NCR Rights: US, SL Agent: A.M. Heath 978 1 84708 880 2 (PB)
978 1 84708 879 6 (Ebook) previously published: January 2014 198 × 129 mm HB £12.99 978 1 84708 878 9
The Long Dry A potent, prize-winning novel of rural life and familial loss – and an unforgettable introduction to one of the most distinctive new voices in British fiction.
November
October
‘It is raw, brutal stuff, and Jones tells it with freshly scoured clarity… a marvellous novel’ The Times
W
December
hen the farmer wakes at dawn, he can already feel the heat of the day rising and the silence from his wife hanging heavy in the air. As he sets out across his parched fields to find a missing cow, his mind starts to turn over the dreams he harbours, the cares he and his wife both carry alone, and the uneasy sense that something is about to change. Written with clarity and depth, this is a powerful novel about the fragility of life and the small, unseen moments upon which fate twists.
January
‘Lovely, poignant, resonant’ Sarah Waters fiction £7.99 July 112 pp B format 198 × 129mm PB Selling Territories: NCR
Rights: US, SL Agent: A.M. Heath 978 1 78378 040 2 (PB) 978 1 78378 041 9 (Ebook)
‘A convincing glimpse of life in all its beauty and sadness’ Big Issue ‘Surely one of the best debut novels of recent years’ Jonathan Lee
July
Everything I Found on the Beach August
From the acclaimed author of The Dig, a tautly crafted novel that packs the tension of a thriller and the emotional heft of a tragedy.
T
‘An excellent novel. Beautiful and haunting...[it] will make your heart race’ Time Out ****
fiction £7.99 July 240pp B format 198 × 129mm Selling Territories: ALL
Rights: SL Agent: A.M. Heath 978 1 78378 042 6 (PB) 978 1 78378 043 3 (Ebook)
October
‘A compelling novel that confirms Jones as a thrilling new presence’ Western Mail
September
ake three strangers who all want something more. The Polish shift worker struggling to get a foothold in the new country; a fisherman who needs to make good on a promise to his best friend; and the middle man, determined to make up for lost time and take a little of what he deserves. When a chance comes along, each man must weigh the risk – and then keep his nerve as events take on their own unstoppable momentum. Tightly plotted and sharply observed, this is a gripping story of desperation and duty, and the brutal struggle to progress.
November December © Alice Fiorilli
January
cynan jones was born near Aberaeron, Wales in 1975. He is the author of three novels, The Long Dry (winner of a Betty Trask Award, 2007), Everything I Found on the Beach (2011), and The Dig (2014), a chapter of which was shortlisted for the 2013 Sunday Times/ EFG Private Bank Short Story Award. He is also the author of Bird, Blood, Snow (2013), the retelling of a medieval Welsh myth.
July
Bulletproof Vest
The Ballad of an Outlaw and His Daughter
August
Maria Venegas Moving between New York and Mexico, between present and past, this is an unblinking reckoning with family ties – and an unforgettable introduction to a powerful new literary talent.
September
M
© Yolanda Perez
‘This is a ballad of America, a lovesong of Mexico, and an intertwined family history, all brilliantly realized in sharp, precise, poetic prose’ Colum McCann
memoir £12.99 July 336pp Demy 216 × 135mm TPB/Ebook 336pp Selling Territories: NCR
‘Venegas’s voice is tough, vulnerable, humorous, insightful and always rousingly alive’ Francisco Goldman
Rights: SL Agent: Wylie Agency 978 1 84708 346 3 (TPB) 978 1 84708 776 8 (Ebook)
December
November
October
aria Venegas had been estranged from her father for fourteen years when she finally made the journey back from the US to Mexico to visit him in the old hacienda where both he and she were born. As they begin spending summers and holidays together, he starts to share stories with her of a dramatic life filled with both intense love and intense brutality. In spare, gripping prose, Venegas traces her own life and her father’s through these inherited stories and gradually comes to understand the violent undercurrents that have shaped them both.
January
maria venegas was born in Mexico and emigrated to the United States when she was four years old. She grew up in Chicago and currently lives and teaches in New York.
July
The Private Life Why We Remain in the Dark
Josh Cohen From a talented and original thinker comes a passionate critique of the intrusiveness of modern culture in an age where everything we do is deemed public knowledge. August
‘Subtle and stimulating’ Lisa Appignanesi, Observer ‘Highly topical and fascinating’ Daily Telegraph
josh cohen is Professor of Modern Literary Theory at Goldsmiths, University of London and a psychoanalyst in private practice. He is the author of How to Read Freud.
how to read freud PB £7.99 978 1 86207 763 8
non-fiction £9.99 October 2014 B format 198 × 129 mm PB 240 pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: US, TN, SL Agent: N/A
978 1 84708 530 6 (PB) 978 1 84708 762 1 (Ebook)
September
‘Elegant and suggestive’ Guardian
previously published: October 2013 Royal 234 × 153mm HB £20.00 978 1 84708 529 0
October
Happiness, Like Water Stories
Chinelo Okparanta November
A bold, breathtaking debut from a Caine-prize shortlisted author; set between Nigeria and America, these are stories of women and children, love and belonging. ‘Chinelo Okparanta writes stories that are brave and devastating’ Mohsin Hamid, author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist
December
‘Profoundly moving and illuminating... I devoured these stories and immediately wanted more’ NoViolet Bulawayo, author of We Need New Names ‘[Okparanta distils] experience into something crystalline, stark but lustrous’ New York Times
978 1 84708 832 1 (Ebook) previously published: May 2013 Demy 216 × 135 mm TPB £12.99 978 1 84708 830 7
January
chinelo okparanta was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria and moved with her family to the US at the age of ten. Her work has been published in Granta magazine and the New Yorker.
fiction £8.99 August B format 198 × 129mm PB 208pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: N/A Agent: Wylie Agency 978 1 84708 831 4 (PB)
July
Everything is Happening Journey into a Painting
August
Michael Jacobs A gripping blend of travel writing, memoir, and art history which delves into the mysteries and meanings of Las Meninas, Velázquez’s iconic masterpiece.
T
September
his is the last book by a versatile and highly revered writer. Tragically, Michael Jacobs died in January 2014.
November
October
Michael Jacobs was fascinated by Velázquez’s enigmatic masterwork for most of his adult life. In this beguiling book, we join Jacobs on his search for the ultimate significance of the painting by following the trails of associations and memories from each individual character in the picture. From the Italian roots of the mysterious dwarf, to Mastiff breeders and the complex politics of Golden-Age Madrid, from the theatrical youth of Velázquez in Seville to the seedy bars of turbulent contemporary Spain, Jacobs dissolves the barriers between the past and the present, the real and the illusory. Praise for The Robber of Memories: 978 1 84708 807 9 (HB) 978 1 84708 809 3 (Ebook)
‘A brave, original and very moving book, full of adventure and history, in which landscape and memory flow subtly together’ Robert Macfarlane
the robber of memories PB £9.99 978 1 84708 408 8
‘Exhilarating... A triumph’ Daily Telegraph ‘Utterly beguiling’ Spectator ‘Irresistible’ Metro
michael jacobs was born in Italy and studied Art History at the Courtauld Institute of Art. He was the author of Andes (Granta, 2010) and The Robber of Memories (Granta, 2012). He divided his time between London and a remote Spanish village.
© Juan Antonio Diaz
January
December
non-fiction £16.99 Demy 216 × 135mm HB Selling Territories: NCR Rights: US, TN, SL Agent: RCW
July
Lucky Us Amy Bloom August
A thrilling and resonant novel from the author of Away, about loyalty, ambition, and the pleasures and perils of family in 1940s America.
W
September
hen Eva’s mother abandons her on Iris’s front porch, the girls don’t seem to have much in common – except, they soon discover, a father. Thrown together with no mothers to care for them and a father who could not be considered a parent, Iris and Eva become one another’s family. Iris wants to be a movie star; Eva is her sidekick. Together, they journey across 1940s America from a lesbian scandal in Hollywood to the jazz clubs and golden mansions of Long Island, stumbling their way through a landscape of war, betrayals and big dreams.
October
‘One waits a long time for a novel of this scope and dimension, replete with [a] mix of comedy and tragedy that borders on the miraculous’ Michael Cunningham November
‘A poignant book that manages to be funny, an unflinching portrait that manages to be tender’ Colum McCann away PB £7.99 978 1 84708 013 4
© Beth Kelly
January
amy bloom is the author of three collections of stories, including Where the God of Love Hangs Out (Granta, 2007), and two novels: Away (Granta, 2010), and Love Invents Us. She is the University Writer in Residence at Wesleyan University.
Agent: Random House US 978 1 84708 936 6 (TPB with flaps) 978 1 84708 938 0 (Ebook)
December
fiction £12.99 Demy 216 × 135 mm TPB with flaps / Ebook 256pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL
July
33 Artists in 3 Acts August
Sarah Thornton
A generational touchstone from one of the leading authorities on the art world, a captivating book which seeks to answer the question ‘What is an Artist?’
33
October
September
Artists in 3 Acts draws on a series of fascinating encounters with the world’s most important artists. Thornton’s incisive, humane and informed approach makes this a must-read book for anybody interested in art, artists or the way the cultural world works. From the most devious machinations of the market to the purest and most humble modes of creative practice, Thornton is a relentlessly intelligent and entertaining guide to this sometimes controversial, sometimes glamorous, always enthralling world. Praise for Seven Days in the Art World:
November
‘Hard thinking but high spirited... Thornton swoops with a trained eye and sharp claws on the makers and breakers of reputation’ Independent
978 1 84708 904 5 (HB) 978 1 84708 905 2 (Export TPB) 978 1 84708 906 9 (Ebook)
seven days in the art world pb £9.99 978 1 84708 084 4
‘Excellent, vivid, wittily written’ Sunday Times
sarah thornton is the author of the international hit, Seven Days in the Art World (Granta, 2008). She has been the chief writer on contemporary art for the Economist and a contributor to publications such as the Guardian, the Art Newspaper and the New Yorker. She lives in London.
© Beowulf Sheehan
January
December
non-fiction £25.00 / £14.99 October Royal 234 × 153mm HB / TPB 336pp TBC Selling: NCR Rights: SL Agent: Wylie Agency
‘Rigorous, precise reportage... Entertaining and lucid’ Financial Times
July
Rising Ground A Search for the Spirit of Place
Philip Marsden August
From an award-winning writer, a vivid exploration of mankind’s response to the land – from Neolithic to modern times – and a journey around one of the most mythologized corners of the British Isles.
September
W
October
hen Philip Marsden moved inland from the Cornish coast he was surprised by the intensity of his response to his new home. He became fascinated with the tradition of ‘topophilia’ or ‘love of place’ and set off on a journey on foot across Bodmin Moor and along the narrowing peninsula to Land’s End. From Neolithic ritual landscape to the Arthurian myths, and from Tudor topographers to abstract painters, he discovers that reverence for the land and for particular places goes to the heart of our history, and of how as individuals we strive to belong on this earth. Praise for Philip Marsden:
November
‘Outstanding... His pitch-perfect feel for a phrase lifts [his work] far above ordinary history towards a state closer to poetry’ Sunday Times
non-fiction £20.00 Royal 234 × 153mm HB 304pp TBC Selling Territories: NCR
‘Delightfully honed as well as being profoundly well-researched... Splendid’ Philip Hoare, Sunday Telegraph
Rights: US, SL Agent: Aitken Alexander Associates 978 1 84708 628 0 (HB) 978 1 84708 629 7 (Ebook)
December
‘Wonderful... Marsden is one of our very finest prose stylists’ New Statesman
© Laura Oliver
January
philip marsden is the award-winning author of a number of works of travel, fiction and non-fiction, including The Spirit-Wrestlers, The Levelling Sea and The Barefoot Emperor. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and his work has been translated into fifteen languages. He lives in Cornwall.
July
Forty-One False Starts Essays on Artists and Writers
August
Janet Malcolm
September
From the celebrated author of The Journalist and the Murderer and Reading Chekhov comes a brilliant, compelling collection of essays on art, artists and the troubled nature of biography ‘A timeless masterpiece’ Independent ‘Reading Malcolm is always thrilling and dangerous... Hers is always a human response’ Telegraph
October
‘No living writer has narrated the drama of turning the messy and meaningless world into words as brilliantly, precisely, and analytically as Malcolm’ Paris Review
non-fiction August £9.99 B format 198 × 128 mm PB 320pp Selling Territories: NCR ANZ Rights: SL Agent: FSG 978 1 84708 856 7 (PB)
978 1 84708 857 4 (Ebook)
the journalist and the murderer PB £9.99 978 1 84708 534 4
previously published: August 2013 Royal 234 × 153 mm HB £20.00 978 1 84708 846 8 HB
in the freud archives PB £9.99 978 1 84708 533 7
psychoanalysis PB £9.99 978 1 84708 535 1
the silent woman PB £9.99 978 1 84708 537 5
January
December
November
reading chekhov PB £9.99 978 1 84708 536 8
janet malcolm is widely considered to be America’s pre-eminent literary journalist.
July
A Stop on theShort Road From Auschwitz Göran Rosenberg
August
Translated from the Swedish by Sarah Death
A shattering literary memoir by the son of Holocaust survivors, and a darkly tender exploration of a child’s relationship with his father. September
T
October
he place is the small Swedish town, sunny and progressive, where Göran Rosenberg’s refugee parents settled after the war. In this measured and intelligent book, Rosenberg explores the contrast between the happy trivia of his own childhood with the stark reality of his parents’ origins and history. Beyond physical survival lies the trial of mental survival: how to live with what in shorthand we call ‘the Holocaust’. Rosenberg’s parents tried so hard to live ordinary lives, but the equilibrium was always fragile. When German doctors examined Rosenberg’s father and initially denied him Holocaust compensation, the mental strain became unbearable.
November
memoir £16.99 November Demy 216 × 135 mm HB 288pp Selling territories: NCR
Rights: SL Agent: Albert Bonniers Förlag 978 1 84708 778 2 (TPB) 978 1 84708 779 9 (Ebook)
December © Caroline Andersson
January
gran rosenberg was born near Stockholm in 1948. In 1970 he left academia to work as a journalist for Swedish television, radio, and print. He is the author of several books, including the highly acclaimed The Lost Land: A Personal History of Zionism, Messianism and the State of Israel.
July
Severed A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found
August
Frances Larson
A serious and seriously entertaining exploration of the dark and varied obsessions that the ‘civilized West’ has had with decapitated heads and skulls, from a rising star of non-fiction writing.
From the Archives of the Royal College of Surgeons of England
November
October
September
T
he human head accommodates four of our five senses, encases the brain, and connects our inner selves to the outer world. Yet there is a dark side to the head’s pre-eminence. From the western collectors whose demand for shrunken heads spurred brutal massacres to the WWII soldiers who sent the remains of Japanese opponents home to their girlfriends; from Madame Tussaud modelling the guillotined head of Robespierre to Damien Hirst photographing decapitated heads in city morgues; from graverobbing phrenologists to skull-obsessed scientists, Larson explores the bizarre, fantastical, and confounding history of the severed head, and offers us a new perspective on a macabre preoccupation.
Agent: Conville & Walsh 978 1 78378 055 6 (HB) 978 1 84708 801 7 (EBook)
dr frances larson is Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Durham. She is the author of a biography of Henry Wellcome, An Infinity of Things, which was chosen as a Sunday Times Book of the Year, and a New Scientist Best Book of 2009.
© Jeff Veitch
January
December
non-fiction £20.00 November Royal 234 × 153 mm HB 336pp TBC Selling Territories: ALL Rights: US, SL
July
Swansong 1945 A Collective Diary from Hitler’s Suicide to VE Day
Walter Kempowski Translated from the German by Shaun Whiteside
August
A compelling and unique insight into the last days of World War II told through first-hand accounts.
S
September
wansong 1945 draws together hundreds of letters, diary extracts and autobiographical accounts to tell the story of four days in 1945: 20th April, Hitler’s last birthday, 25th April, when American and Soviet troops first met at the Elbe, 30th April, the day Hitler committed suicide, and 8th May, the day of the German surrender. Side by side in these pages, we encounter civilians fleeing on foot to the west, British and American POWs dreaming of home, concentration camp survivors, loyal soldiers from both sides of the conflict as well as national leaders including Churchill. A modern classic, this vital work brings to life a time whose repercussions are still felt today.
October November
‘A puzzle of voices, of the defeated and the victors, that opens into panorama... Kempowski is a master’ Der Spiegel ‘Everything happens at once... It is this simultaneity of downfall and rebirth, the pause for breath amidst the inferno, that result in this snapshot from which we cannot tear ourselves away’ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
history £25.00 Royal 234 × 153 mm HB 384pp TBC Selling Territories: NCR Rights: US, SL
Agent: Random House Germany 978 1 84708 640 2 (HB) 978 1 84708 642 6 (Ebook)
December © Helmet Fricke
January
walter kempowski (1929–2007) was a German novelist who achieved great fame with his ‘German Chronicles’ series of novels. In 2005 he finished compiling Das Echolot, his immense and important collage of the war years which ends with Swansong 1945.
July
The LightEmerald in the Air Stories
August
Donald Antrim
A funny and achingly tender short story collection from a master of the form.
W
October
September
hether they are stuck in a city that feels increasingly unreal or struggling to get by in rural Virginia, the men and women in Donald Antrim’s painfully funny stories are always one small step away from madness. From the ageing drama professor with a predilection for pot and a crush on his star pupil to the unfaithful husband who steals a giant bouquet for his wife, Antrim has created a world both sad and hilarious, smart and true, in which sanity is precarious and kindness can be found in the most unexpected of places. Praise for Donald Antrim:
© Matthew Green
November
‘Lots of writers can be, by turns, sad, funny, frightening, or ludicrous. Antrim does all these things at once’ Jeffrey Eugenides
Agent: Wylie Agency 978 1 84708 649 5 (TPB) 978 1 84708 650 1 (EBook)
elect mr robinson for a better world PB £8.99 978 1 84708 652 5
donald antrim is the author of the novels Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World, The Hundred Brothers and The Verificationist as well as the memoir, The Afterlife. The New Yorker named him as one of its inaugural twenty best writers under the age of forty.
© Melanie Morand
January
December
fiction £12.99 November Demy 216 × 135 TPB 320pp TBC Selling: NCR Rights: SL (second only)
‘Subversive, anarchic, digressive, provocative, comically outrageous. Think Virginia Woolf stoned, Faulkner on acid, Nabokov on speed’ Guardian
Wanderlust A History of Walking Recently Published
Rebecca Solnit
Republished by Granta with a stunning new jacket – Solnit’s profound, meandering guide to the historical, political and philosophical paths traced by walkers, their walks and the act of walking.
W
hat does it mean to be out walking in the world, whether in a landscape or a metropolis, on a pilgrimage or a protest march? In this first general history of walking, Rebecca Solnit draws together many histories to create a range of possibilities for this most basic act. From the peripatetic philosophers of ancient Greece to the poets of the Romantic Age, from the perambulations of the Surrealists to the ascents of mountaineers, and from Wordsworth to Rousseau, from Jane Austen’s Elizabeth Bennet to André Breton’s Nadja, Wanderlust offers a provocative and profound examination of the interplay between the body, the imagination, and the world. ‘Radical, humane, witty, sometimes wonderfully dandyish, at other times, impassioned and serious’ Alain de Botton ‘Magisterial’ Will Self, Guardian
literary essays £9.99 May B format 198 × 129mm PB 336pp Selling Territories: NCR
‘It is about time and space and consciousness of the world as much as about putting one foot in front of the other’ The Times
the faraway nearby PB £8.99 978 1 84708 512 2
© Jim Herrington
rebecca solnit is author of, among other books, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, A Paradise Built in Hell, the NBCC award-winning River of Shadows, and The Faraway Nearby (Granta, 2013). A contributing editor to Harper’s, she writes regularly for the LRB and the LA Times. She lives in San Francisco.
Rights: SL Agent: Penguin US 978 1 78378 0 396 (PB)
Granta Magazine July – December 2014
the magazine of new writing
July
Granta 128: American Wild
August
Edited by Sigrid Rausing
When every inch of land has been conquered, when every place has been mapped, what is left to explore? This issue of Granta goes into the American wild, metaphorical and real.
found in my absence that I had missed two visitors: one left me nothing I could know them by; the other must have been a woman, judging by the gift of wood-shavings and pale grasses she had picked and twisted into a bouquet that lingered on my table.’
Andrew Motion, ‘A Meeting of Minds with Henry David Thoreau’ And Martin Amis, Thomas McGuane, Melinda Moustakis, Adam Nicolson, Mona Simpson, Claire Vaye Watkins, Callan Wink, and others. ‘Fiction, nonfiction, poetry and photography… Sometimes you’re not quite sure what you’re reading until you’ve finished it – if then. That mystery is part of the excitement’ Chicago Tribune
January
December
November
October
September
‘I
£12.99 July 210 × 145 mm PB / Ebook 256pp (TBC) Colour illustrations Colour photo section
© Joerg Buschmann / Millennium Images, UK
selling territories: ALL rights: Granta 978 1 905881 81 9 (PB) 978 1 905881 82 6 (Ebook)
July
Granta 129: Autumn issue Edited by Sigrid Rausing
over the reservoir – a on the embankment, fingertip indentations in the grass, each with a darker lunule. She asks: What are you doing? I reply: Thinking about my life.’
August
Moon rise ‘Lunule. hush of wind
Will Self, ‘Key Stroke’
Three times he wets his eyes, small and minutely lashed, three times he turns his head left and right making sure his ears are fingered clean. Ejecting the water from his nostrils, first left then right, he says a prayer over the gargle of his morning ablutions.
October
Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith.’
September
Radio bends down at the ‘Maulana washbasin and draws water to his face.
Fatima Bhutto, ‘Blasphemy’
© Maite Carames / Millennium Images, UK
selling territories: ALL rights: Granta 978 1 905881 83 3 (PB) 978 1 905881 84 0 (Ebook)
January
£12.99 October 210 × 145 mm PB / Ebook 256pp (TBC) Colour illustrations Colour photo section
December
sigrid rausing is Acting Editor and Publisher of Granta magazine and Publisher 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 UK, and translated into four languages.
November
‘In its edginess and originality, Granta continues to inspire… [it’s] one of our essential literary quarterlies’ The Nation
Stonegate
July – December 2014
STONEGATE
Stonegate is a new imprint of Granta Publications that will publish interesting and unusual illustrated books on an occasional basis.
Stonegate is registered as Stonegate Press and is an imprint of Granta Publications.
ďœ˛ďœ¸
January
The Magic of the Mask The Bolon
Michel de Combes February
A highly personal journey to reveal the hidden magic of the mask of the remarkable Bolon maskers and mask-makers in a remote corner of Burkina Faso, West Africa.
P
March
hotographer and African art collector Michel de Combes travelled extensively in West Africa over a period of fifteen years from the late 1980s, researching and documenting Bolon masks. He journeyed alone, staying in remote villages for up to five months of the year, capturing the masks and mask-making on film. His drive to understand the magic of the mask has resulted in this unique project; an unsurpassed collection of photographs of masks from one of the most remote areas of Africa. Together, the book and DVD present images never before published, giving a remarkable insight into a secret world of ritual performance.
April May July
michel de combes is a well-respected photographer and African art collector residing in South Africa and France. The Magic of the Mask is his first book.
Selling Territories: ALL Rights: US, TN, SL Agent: Eric Abraham 978 0 9926826 0 6
June
art £35.00 March 2014 230 × 290mm (landscape) HB with free DVD 248pp Full colour Exclusive single-run edition
Portobello Books July – December 2014
July
Deep Sea and Foreign Going
Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry that Brings You 90% of Everything
Rose George August
A prize-winning, unprecedented exploration of the shady world of powerful naval fleets, pirate gangs, and international shipping, the hidden industry upon which our world turns and our future depends.
non-fiction £9.99 July 320pp B format 198 × 129 mm Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: WME 978 1 84627 299 8 (PB)
978 1 84627 480 0 (Ebook) previously published: September 2013 £14.99 234 × 153 mm TPB 978 1 84627 263 9
‘George [illuminates] the details of the invisible ocean industry that is, and always will be, essential to all of us’ Simon Winchester ‘A remarkable work of embedded reportage – hair-raising, witty, compassionate – it deserves to be read’ Guardian the big necessity PB £8.99 978 1 84627 070 3
October
September
‘Arresting, sharply observed, deeply researched and compelling’ Sunday Telegraph
rose george is the author of A Life Removed and The Big Necessity: Adventures in the World of Human Waste. Deep Sea and Foreign Going was awarded the Mountbatten Maritime Media Award.
The Memory Palace A Book of Lost Interiors
January
December
November
Edward Hollis A spellbinding follow-up to The Secret Lives of Buildings: Hollis turns his focus to the great interiors lost to history, conjuring both vanished chambers and their eclectic inhabitants. ‘Rich and poetic, this is the kind of non-fiction that makes fiction seem predictable, thin and uncurious’ Scotsman
non-fiction £9.99 September 198 × 129 mm PB 368pp Selling Territories: ALL Rights: US, SL Agent: Conville & Walsh 978 1 84627 326 1 (PB) 978 1 84627 495 4 (Ebook)
previously published: September 2013 Royal 234 × 153 HB £25.00 978 1 84627 325 4
‘[His] combinations of distinct facts and elegantly wrought fictions are hypnotic... Brilliant’ Independent ‘Hollis is a refreshing thinker. He reaches beyond aesthetics and into more unusual territory’ Daily Telegraph the secret lives of buildings PB £9.99 978 1 84627 128 1
edward hollis’s first book, The Secret Lives of Buildings, was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. Both his books have been nominated for the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction.
July
The 13th Labour of Hercules
State Failure, Social Breakdown and the Struggle to Start Over in Greece
Yannis Palaiologos August
From a well-respected Greek investigative reporter comes a riveting account of the social, cultural and political forces that left Greece defenceless when the great global economic crisis came.
S
September
ince the revelation of Greece’s massive hidden deficit in late 2009, observers around the globe have watched with morbid fascination as the country has repeatedly flirted with political and financial chaos, as one failed rescue programme has followed another, as extremism has spread and creditors have bickered.
politics £14.99 September Royal 234 × 153mm TPB / Ebook 272pp TBC Selling Territories: NCR, NGR
November
© Maria Maraki
October
From a small town’s violent revolt against a proposed landfill to the trials of uninsured cancer patients, and from the blighted hopes of bright young Greeks to the pogroms organized by fascist thugs, Yannis Palaiologos builds a nuanced picture of life before the crisis and life since the bailout. This is Greece today.
Rights: US, SL Agent: A. P. Watt 978 1 84627 573 9 (TPB) 978 1 84627 574 6 (Ebook)
December January
yannis palaiologos is a journalist who was born and raised in Greece, where he now lives and works as a features reporter for Kathimerini. He has a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and a post-graduate degree in Philosophy from the University of Oxford.
July
A Meal in Winter Hubert Mingarelli
Translated from the French by Sam Taylor
August
A miniature masterpiece, this is the spare, stunning story of three German soldiers who share a meal with their Jewish prisoner and face a chilling choice. ‘This strong and simple story packs a mighty punch’ The Times
fiction £7.99 October B format 198 × 129mm PB Selling: NCR Rights: US, SL Agent: Editions Stock 978 1 84627 536 4 (PB) 978 1 84627 535 7 (Ebook)
previously published: November 2013 B format 198 × 129 mm HB £12.99 978 1 84627 534 0
hubert mingarelli has written novels, short story collections and fiction for young adults. His book Quatre soldats won the Prix de Médicis. He lives in Grenoble.
Cristina and Her Double
October
September
‘This is the most moving book I have read for a long time... Mingarelli’s spare language is well suited to this luminous tale... he accomplishes a great deal’ Independent on Sunday
Selected Essays
Herta Müller Translated from the German by Geoffrey Mulligan
January
December
November
The finest essays from the winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature, one of the most fearless and incandescent European literary figures in the last fifty years.
H
essays £9.99 October B format 198 × 129mm PB 208pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: Hanser Verlag 978 1 84627 571 5 (PB) 978 1 84627 512 8 (Ebook)
erta Müller grew up in Ceaus¸escu’s Romania, a police state where she endured intimidation, surveillance, and brutal interrogations. These highly literary autobiographical essays examine the questions of complicity, betrayal, guilt, and responsibility in totalitarian and posttotalitarian societies.
previously published: November 2013 200 × 153mm HB £18.99 978 1 84627 475 6
‘Highly sophisticated’ New York Review of Books ‘Müller [writes in] language of the greatest intensity’ TLS
the appointment
the hunger angel
PB £7.99 978 1 84627 376 6
PB £7.99 978 1 84627 278 3
Born in Romania in 1953, herta mller refused to cooperate with Ceaus¸escu’s regime and fled to Germany. She has been awarded the Nobel Prize, the European Literature Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
July
The End of Days Jenny Erpenbeck Translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky
August
From one of the most daring voices in European fiction, this is a story of the 20th traced through the various possible lives of one woman. ‘We are born and we die – but many things could happen in between.’
September
M
October
oving from a small Galician town at the turn of the century, through prewar Vienna and Stalin’s Moscow to present-day Berlin, Jenny Erpenbeck homes in on the moments when life follows a particular branch and ‘fate’ suddenly emerges from the sly interplay between history, character, and pure chance. The End of Days is a novel that pulls apart the threads of destiny and allows us to see the present and the past anew.
WINNER OF THE HANS FALLADA PRIZE
November
Praise for Visitation: ‘Poetical, almost incantatory... Erpenbeck is one of the finest, most exciting authors alive’ Michel Faber, Guardian
fiction £12.99 November B Format 198 × 129mm HB Selling: NCR Rights: SL Agent: Random House Germany
‘A minimalist masterpiece’ Financial Times
978 1 84627 513 5 (HB) 978 1 84627 514 2 (Ebook)
visitation PB £7.99 978 1 84627 190 8
December
‘Powerful... an important work by a novelist of great talent’ TLS
© Katharina Behling
January
jenny erpenbeck was born in East Berlin in 1967. She is author of The Old Child & The Book of Words (Portobello, 2008) and Visitation (Portobello, 2011), which was shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. On publication in Germany, The End of Days was awarded the Hans Fallada Prize and longlisted for the Deutsche Buchpreis.
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
the luminaries 978 1 84708 432 3 £9.99
the butterfly isles 978 1 84708 315 9 £9.99
train dreams 978 1 84708 662 4 £7.99
londoners 978 1 84708 329 6 £9.99
the wild places 978 1 84708 018 9 £9.99
battleborn 978 1 84708 487 3 £8.99
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
portobello backlist
cruel britannia 978 1 84627 334 6 £9.99
days of grace 978 1 84627 184 7 £7.99
the value of nothing 978 1 84627 218 9 £8.99
what to eat? 978 1 84627 216 5 £9.99
the still point 978 1 84627 230 1 £7.99
the appointment 978 1 84627 376 6 £7.99
the visible world 978 1 84627 086 4 £7.99
behind the beautiful forevers 978 1 84627 451 0 £9.99
africa 978 1 84627 155 7 £9.99
slavery inc. 978 1 84627 422 0 £9.99
the wizard of the nile 978 1 84627 031 4 £7.99
a world of trouble 978 1 84627 021 5 £12.99
Index #
G
N
13th Labour of Hercules, The 33
George, Rose 32 Granta 128: American Wild 24 Granta 129: Autumn issue 25 Gunesekera, Romesh 6, 7
Noontide Toll 6
H
P
Happiness, Like Water 11 Hollis, Edward 32
Palaiologos, Yannis 33 Private Life, The 11
J
R
Jacobs, Michael 12 Jones, Cynan 8, 9
Reef 7 Rising Ground 15 Rosenberg, Göran 17
33 Artists in 3 Acts 14 A Antrim, Donald 20 B Bloom, Amy 13 Bulletproof Vest 10 C
Cohen, Josh 11 Combes, Michel de 29 Cristina and Her Double 34 D
Deep Sea and Foreign Going 32 Dig, The 8 E
Emerald Light in the Air, The 20 End of Days, The 35 Erpenbeck, Jenny 35 Everything I Found on the Beach 8 Everything is Happening 12 F
Forty-One False Starts 16
K
Kempowski, Walter 19
O
Okparanta, Chinelo 11
S
Larson, Frances 18 Long Dry, The 9 Lucky Us 13
Severed 18 Short Stop on the Road From Auschwitz, A 17 Solnit, Rebecca 21 Swansong 1945 19
M
T
Magic of the Mask, The 29 Malcolm, Janet 16 Marsden, Philip 15 Meal in Winter, A 34 Memory Palace, The 32 Mingarelli, Hubert 34 Müller, Herta 34
Thornton, Sarah 14
L
V
Venegas, Maria 10 W
Wanderlust 21
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