22 October 2020

Synchronicity Films is developing a limited series based on Andrew O'Hagan’s Mayflies, with screenwriter Andrea Gibb on board to adapt the novel. The book tells the story of a life-long friendship, ranging from boyhood in a small Scottish town in the 1980s to middle-age, as they face to the painful realities of later life.

Claire Mundell, founder and creative director at Synchronicity Films, said: "In a time of turmoil, Mayflies is balm for the soul and will resonate with anyone who values the sustaining power of friendship. We cannot wait to bring this adaptation to the screen as a premium, prestige series."

Andrew O’Hagan added: "I have been overwhelmed by the public response to Mayflies and feel it has found the perfect home with Synchronicity. Andrea Gibb is one of my favourite writers for television and producer Claire Mundell is second to none in her devotion to gripping, emotional, world-class drama. I look forward to supporting the production in every way I can, and encouraging these brilliant people in their task of bringing to the screen my most personal novel yet. It’s a story of friendship, loyalty, youth and growth, and Synchronicit...

15 October 2020

Former winner Kate Summerscale has made the shortlist for the UK’s top prize for nonfiction, the Baillie Gifford award, for her “true ghost story,” The Haunting of Alma Fielding. The book traces how Alma Fielding, an ordinary young woman in 1930s suburban London, begins to experience supernatural events, and follows the investigations of Nandor Fodor, chief ghost hunter for the International Institute for Psychical Research.

The judges said: “In a narrative as replete with conceptual surprises as dramatic reversals, Summerscale probes the distinction between the psychological and the material, the internal and external, and overhauls the reader’s sense of what it might mean to be haunted.”

This year's winner will be announced on 24 November 2020. Click here for more. 

15 October 2020

Shane McCrae's Sometimes I Never Suffered is among the ten titles shortlisted for the prestigious T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry 2020. This collection of poems is a search for purpose and atonement, freedom and forgiveness, imagining eternity not as an escape from the past or present, but as a reverberating record and as the culmination of time's manifold potential to mend.

This is the most valuable prize in British poetry and this year's winner will be revealed in January. The chair of judges, Lavinia Greenlaw, said: “It is hard to write good, powerful poetry that is explicitly politically engaged. But these poets are all political. And they’re all artful.” 

Click here to discover more.

12 October 2020

Adania Shibli's Minor Detail, which is translated from Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette and published in the US by New Directions, is shortlisted for the 2020 National Book Awards in the Translated Literature category. The book is split between two interrelated narratives, the latter half following a young woman’s search to discover more about the tragic murder of a Palestinian teenager in 1949, who died the day she was born.

This is the second year since this prize category was first established by the National Book Foundation in order to broaden readership for global voices and spark dialogue around international stories. This prize honours both the author and the translator for work published in the US and the winners are set to be announced on Wednesday, November 18 at the 71st National Book Awards Ceremony, which will be held exclusively online. 

12 October 2020

Katherine Rundell's The Good Thieves, which is the story of Vita Marlowe, who sails to New York to take back the home taken from her grandfather by the sinister Victor Sorrotore; Aisha Bushby's A Pocketful of Stars, in which a young girl finds herself with a magical puzzle to solve after she is transported back to her sick mother’s childhood home in Kuwait; and Jenny Pearson's The Super Miraculous Journey of Freddie Yates, the story about a boy who finds out his biological father is still alive so sets out to find him with his two best friends in tow, have been longlisted for the UKLA Book Awards.

The UKLA Book Awards are the only national awards judged by active classroom teachers and all the book selected exemplify the award criteria’s aim of encouraging teachers’ knowledge of high-quality children’s books that can reflect all identities and promote diversity.

Click here to discover more.

05 October 2020

Alice Oseman's Heartstopper Vol 3, which is the third book in the LGBTQ+ graphic novel series about life, love, and everything that happens in between, has been shortlisted for the 2020 Books Are My Bag Readers Award in the Young Adult Fiction category. 

The annual awards shortlists, which is sponsored by National Book Tokens, are compiled by bookshops and then put out to a public vote. Readers are now invited to vote for a winning title from each shortlist until 25th October, with the winners being announced 10th November at a virtual awards ceremony hosted by restaurant critic and author Grace Dent. The ceremony will be streamed at 5:30 p.m. across the Books Are my Bag YouTube, Twitter and Facebook channels.

Click here to vote.

05 October 2020

'Emergency,' which was written by Jacob Polley for BBC Radio 4, is now available on BBC Sounds. The play is set on the day of the catastrophic flood event in Carlisle in 2005, and uses a collage of voices to reflect on the act of witnessing an emergency, implicitly the climate emergency. Through a 1200-year-old Old English riddle, which draws on texts from the even more ancient classical world, Polley gives voice to Storm itself, dramatizing the shock, awe and conflicting witnessings that have been fundamental to the human experience of catastrophe.

It is a giddy, poetic and symphonic exploration of a specific event and place, and of the elemental powers of the natural world, conjured in a unique soundscape composed by the Dutch musicians, Strijbos and van Rijswijk. Click here to listen now.

01 October 2020

Claire Adam's debut Golden Child, published in the UK by Faber & Faber, has been shortlisted for the inaugural Diverse Book Awards in the adult fiction category. This adds to Adam's list of recent accolades, which also includes the UK Desmond Elliot Prize, the Authors Club Best First Novel Award, among others.

The Diverse Book Awards is a new prize ceremony that was created by the writing community The Author School to recognize inclusivity in children's, YA and adult fiction. The winners in each category will be announced in October and awarded a bundle of prizes including a trophy, a six-month PR and marketing membership of Literally PR’s "100 Club’", a This Is Book Love bookshop listing, editorial in Pen & Inc, the opportunity to be part of an author panel event to be hosted by The Author School, and to be part of the Margate Bookie online festival programme in November.

01 October 2020

Deepa Anappara's Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, a debut novel that draws on real incidents and a spate of disappearances in metropolitan India, has been shortlisted for the 2020 JCB Prize for Literature. The jury said the book is, "A very readable and contemporary piece of fiction. A risky debut since it picks a young person, specifically a child as the voice of the novel. While we do not take the investigation seriously, since it’s children trying to solve a mystery, we as readers feel equally helpless at the unfolding events. The book bristles in places – taking you inside a forgotten universe without any self-pity."

The JCB Prize is presented each year to a distinguished work of fiction by an Indian author. It aims to celebrate Indian writing, and to help readers across the world discover the very best of contemporary Indian literature. The five authors shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature receive Rs 1 lakh and the winning author will receive Rs 25 lakh. 

Discover more here.

17 September 2020

Adania Shibli's Minor Detail, which is translated from Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette and published in the US by New Directions, is longlisted for the 2020 National Book Awards in the Translated Literature category. The book is split between two interrelated narratives, the latter half following a young woman’s search to discover more about the tragic murder of a Palestinian teenager in 1949, who died the day she was born.

This is the second year since this prize category was first established by the National Book Foundation in order to broaden readership for global voices and spark dialogue around international stories. This prize honours both the author and the translator for work published in the US and the finalists are set to be announced on 6th October 2020.

15 September 2020

Annalena McAfee’s French edition of Nightshade, which is entitled Poison Florilegium and is translated from English by Sarah Tardy for Editions Belfond, is on the prestigious Prix Femina Etranger longlist for translated fiction. This is the third novel from the former editor and critic (it follows The Spoiler in 2011, which drew on McAfee’s experience of working for newspapers including the Financial Times, and Hame in 2017), and tells the life story of botanical artist Eve Laing through a series of flashbacks experienced as she makes a long journey across London one night before Christmas. It is published in the UK by Harvill Secker and is about love, fidelity, fame, betrayal, and the large choices and prices paid in the quest for art for art’s sake. 

The Prix Femina Etranger shortlist will be announced in October, and the winner in November 2020.

10 September 2020

William Feaver's The Lives of Lucian Freud: Fame and Kate Summerscale's The Haunting of Alma Fielding: A True Ghost Story are among 12 titles longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2020. Both authors are published by Bloomsbury and have previously been shortlisted for the prize: William Feaver only last year for the first volume of his Lucian Freud biography and Kate Summerscale for The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, which won the prize in 2008. 

The Baillie Gifford Prize celebrates the best in non-fiction writing and the shortlist for the 2020 award will be announced on 15th October, with the winner crowned in a virtual reception on 24th November.

04 September 2020

Elizabeth Karlsen and Stephen Woolley’s Number 9 Films, together with Rachael Horovitz's West Fourth Films, has acquired the television rights to Viv Albertine's bestselling memoirs Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. and To Throw Away Unopened. The books detail her upbringing in London in the 1970s, her rise as guitarist in The Slits at the height of the male-dominated punk rock music scene, and her friendship with members of The Sex Pistols and The Clash.

Viv Albertine says, "I’m so happy that Rachael, Elizabeth and Stephen are bringing my books to the screen. Right from the start they were sensitive to the extremely personal nature of the work and I knew the books were in the hands of producers with integrity. Their vision is perfectly in tune with the work, they understand the subject and the times, I can’t wait for the project to get started and to see all the characters in my story come to life!" 

Woolley and Karlsen, who are married, are known for producing book-to-screen adaptations including Carol, On Chesil Beach, Great Expectations and Midnight’s Children; Woolley was O...

03 September 2020

Esi Edugyan's Washington Black and Olga Tokarczuk's Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones) are among ten novels shortlisted for the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award, eight of which are written by women.

Celebrating 25 years, this award is the world’s most valuable annual prize for a single work of fiction published in English, worth €100,000 to the winner. If the book has been translated the author receives €75,000 and the translator receives €25,000. The winner of the International Dublin Literary Award 2020 will be announced by its Patron, Lord Mayor Hazel Chu on Thursday 22nd October, as part of International Literature Festival Dublin (ILFDublin).

Click here to discover more.

03 September 2020

Deepa Anappara's Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, a debut novel that draws on real incidents and a spate of disappearances in metropolitan India, has been longlisted for the 2020 JCB Prize for Literature. The jury said the book is, "A very readable and contemporary piece of fiction. A risky debut since it picks a young person, specifically a child as the voice of the novel. While we do not take the investigation seriously, since it’s children trying to solve a mystery, we as readers feel equally helpless at the unfolding events. The book bristles in places – taking you inside a forgotten universe without any self-pity."

The JCB Prize is presented each year to a distinguished work of fiction by an Indian author. It aims to celebrate Indian writing, and to help readers across the world discover the very best of contemporary Indian literature. The five authors shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature receive Rs 1 lakh and the winning author will receive Rs 25 lakh. 

Discover more here.

14 August 2020

A film adaptation of Femi Fadugba’s debut YA fantasy The Upper World, which recently sold to Penguin UK in a 15-way auction for British Commonwealth rights, is currently in the works at Netflix, with Oscar nominee Daniel Kaluuya on board to star and produce. Eric Newman, who brought the book to Netflix, is producing alongside Screen Arcade partner Bryan Unkeless, through their first-look deal at Netflix, and Kaluuya.

Femi Fadugba is also serving as Executive Producer and says: “With Netflix bringing the film adaptation to audiences around the world, I’m excited about the impact the story can have. I’d love to one day see teachers putting the book on their summer reading lists. I’d love to help create a world where when people talk about the new Cardi B, Giggs or C.S song, they mention the ideas in The Upper World as part of the culture as well.”

Set in Peckham, London, the story follows Esso, who is caught in a deadly feud and on the verge of expulsion when he realizes he has an unexpected gift: access to a world where he can see glimpses of the past and the future. A generation away, Rhia is walking to football practi...

10 August 2020

Film rights to Kazuo Ishiguro's forthcoming Klara and the Sun have been acquired by Elizabeth Gabler at 3000 Pictures, with help from Drew Reed at Sony, in a pre-empt. The film will be produced by David Heyman and Rosie Alison at Heyday Films. 3000 Pictures is a joint venture with Sony Pictures and Harper Collins.

Klara and the Sun tells the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her. The novel offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: what does it mean to love?

Ishiguro's first novel since winning the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature, Klara and the Sun will be published by Faber in March 2021.