Chatto backs Tyler's 24th novel with 'unmissable' campaign

Chatto & Windus is promising an "unmissable" marketing, publicity and sales campaign to accompany Anne Tyler’s 24th novel, French Braid, as the author turns 80. 

The Pulitzer Prize-winning, Booker Prize-shortlisted writer celebrates her birthday today (25th October) as Chatto & Windus and Vintage kickstart the campaign for her new novel.

Deputy publishing director Becky Hardie acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, from Caspian Dennis at Abner Stein on behalf of Jesseca Salky at Salky Literary Management. The book will be published on 24th March 2022. 

“French Braid will be will be one of Vintage’s biggest fiction publications of the year, backed by an unmissable marketing, publicity and sales campaign,” the publisher said. “Today marks the launch of a pre-order campaign, with promotional activity including the release of a limited number of signed copies available from high-street and independent retailers, and a celebration of Anne Tyler’s extraordinary career to date across Vintage and Penguin’s online channels.” 

Following the Booker-longlisted Redhead by the Side of the Road (Chatto) in 2020, French Braid is a new family novel from Tyler, described by the publisher as “a brilliantly perceptive, painfully true and funny journey deep into one family's foibles, from the 1950s right up to the changed world of today”.  

Hardie said: “Chatto & Windus are so proud and happy to have been Anne’s UK publisher for the last 56 years, and to be celebrating her birthday with the news of her masterful new novel, French Braid. Anne’s superlative powers of observation are in full force in this funny, deeply revealing portrait of a family attempting to navigate the decades—and one another. Anne has always been a wise writer, and her wisdom and acuity just seem to go from strength to strength with every passing year.”