Canongate snaps up Prasifka's 'cautionary tale' about our online lives

Canongate has snapped up Catherine Prasifka’s latest novel, This is How You Remember It, a "cautionary tale" about our online lives.

Jamie Byng and Aa’Ishah Hawton acquired world rights, excluding US and Canada, from Marianne Gunn O’Connor at Marianne Gunn O’Connor Literary, Film/TV Agency. The book will be edited by Leah Woodburn and Canongate is set to publish in May 2024.

The synopsis says: "You’re nine when you get your first computer. Your favourite thing is a virtual pet website; you spend hours in the chatroom. You don’t understand why some of your online friends don’t use their real names. It’s not long before you discover porn. You don’t know what you’re watching, but you do know that you shouldn’t tell anybody.

"Later, older, your first kiss is captured on camera and shared with everyone in your year… Now, you can’t remember a time when you didn’t feel hollow inside. Now, you know that something has to change. Chilling, potent and intensely intimate, This is How You Remember It is at once a cautionary tale, a call to arms and a tender love story. It is about a life lived online, and about finding another way, when it’s all you’ve ever known."

Prasifka is currently studying for an MA in Irish Folklore and Ethnology at University College Dublin and is the author of the novel None of This Is Serious (Canongate).

Prasifka said: "The internet fundamentally shapes how we live our lives: it affects how we see ourselves, our bodies, other people, our relationships. And yet, it’s so new.

"This Is How You Remember It is my attempt to explain what it feels like to have grown up with evolving technology as it becomes more and more integrated into our lives. I remember a time before the internet, but only barely. My generation is one that grew up alongside social media, and so we have had uniquely online experiences that affect our ’offline’ lives as well."

Woodburn added: "Catherine writes like no one else about the impact of the internet and social media on our lives, and has something profound to say about how it warps our sense of self and our relationships. As much as This is How You Remember It is terrifying, it’s also truthful and necessary."