Anappara debut goes in 14 territories

The debut novel from Deepa Anappara, which sparked a flurry of excitement over the Frankfurt Book Fair (FBF) including a nine-publisher auction in the UK, has now secured 14 international territories.

Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line was won by Chatto & Windus on the eve of the fair last week following a nine-publisher bidding war. The Bookseller understands her agent, Peter Straus, of Rogers, Coleridge & White, turned down a significant for a world English rights before the auction took place. 

The University of East Anglia PhD student had earlier scooped the second Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers (DRF) prize for unpublished writers, as well as taking the Lucy Cavendish Award and the Bridport Novel Award.

On the fierce flurry of offers for UK rights, C&W publishing director Clara Farmer, told The Bookseller: “We have acquired in UK and commonwealth territories in a joint acquisition with PRH India, to publish spring 2020 — we closed the deal when I was on Platform 6a in Brussels-Midi en route to Frankfurt.” Farmer said they would not be disclosing financial details but that it “was a hotly contested nine-way auction”.

The book has now sold to 14 territories altogether including to Rowohlt in Germany for what The Bookseller understands to be a significant sum, to Random House in the US, PRH India, Companhia das Letras in Brazil and to Politikens in Denmark. Other international deals include France, Holland, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Norway, Spain and Sweden.

“Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line is a brave and brilliant book, narrated by a nine-year-old boy, Jai, who goes in search of his missing friends”, Straus told The Bookseller. “Set in a slum settlement on the outskirts of a fictional North Indian city, it recounts in vivid and heartbreaking prose, the struggles of a community coming to terms with the sudden disappearance of local children. The story sparkles with lightness and Deepa captures the extraordinary resilience of children without romanticising either poverty or India.”

He added: “Djinn Patrol finds joy and meaning in the midst of chaos and suffering and provides hope in moments of darkness.”

The book has drawn comparisons to The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-Time, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (both published by Vintage), Room and A Fine Balance (Faber) "but it has an inventiveness and a precision all of its own," Straus said.

When Anappara won the DRF prize, chair of the judges Anne Enright t praised the depth and characterisation of writers' work.

“We care about these characters from the first page and our concern for them is richly repaid,” Enright said at the ceremony. “This is storytelling at its best – not just sympathetic, vivid, and beautifully detailed, but also completely assured and deft. Set in the slumlands of a sprawling Indian city, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line is a modern tale that works an ancient seam of the story-telling tradition."

Anappara is currently doing a PhD in Creative-Critical Writing at UEA in Norwich. She has a Masters in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) from UEA. Her short fiction and journalism has also won a number of awards, including for the time she spent reporting in India on human rights and education.

She was also awarded the year-long Prabha Dutt Fellowship in Journalism to research the impact of religious violence on the education of children.