Bloomsbury buys Cornish fishing village book after TLS article

Bloomsbury is to publish the story of life in a Cornish fishing village by new writer Lamorna Ash, after a fortuitous reading of an article in the Times Literary Supplement.

Publishing director Michael Fishwick read a piece in the TLS written by Ash about going out with a fishing boat in Cornwall and enquired about a book. He bought world rights to the as-yet-untitled book from Curtis Brown.

"I thought it was absolutely wonderful and immediately wanted to be in touch with her. It was beautifully written, very original and deeply discerning about the lives of the people of Newlyn and what it’s like to be at sea, and of such maturity that I was rather surprised to find she had only just left university", said Fishwick. "It reminded me a little of taking on the young William Dalrymple after reading about his journey to Xanadu in the Times. I think this is going to be a very special book about a very special world, reminiscent perhaps of Dalrymple’s own City of Djinns.”

Ash went to Newlyn for a single month to complete her anthropology masters fieldwork, staying in the centre of the village with a couple she had never met before – a fishmonger and ship’s chandler called Lofty and Denise. In those first few days, she was regarded with a healthy degree of suspicion. By her final few weeks, this couple, along with many other members of the community, had assumed the roles of her surrogate parents. On the long scenic train journey back to London, she had written at the bottom of her field notes, underlined: Remember that you have been happier and felt more solid here than you ever did in London. Remember that this cannot and must not be the end of your time in Newlyn.”

Agent Cathryn Summerhayes said: “Michael gets the credit for recognising Lamorna’s incredible talent as a writer and anthropologist – and I’m fortunate that Stig Abell from the TLS introduced me to Lamorna.”

Ash has just finished her masters in Social and Cultural Anthropology at UCL. She has worked as an intern for the Times Literary Supplement, writing reviews of theatre, of memoirs about freshwater mussels and science fiction novels, as well as articles about Cornwall, Soviet movie posters, Joseph Conrad cycle tours of London and all manner of other strange subjects.

Bloomsbury is set to publish in March 2020.