Daunt Books takes Singh's 'visionary' The Breaks

Daunt Books Publishing has acquired the The Breaks by Julietta Singh, the first non-fiction book on its Originals list,

Publisher Željka Marošević acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Lizzie Davis at Coffee House Press. The book will be published as a lead title in autumn 2021.  

Daunt said: “In The Breaks, Singh writes a letter to her six-year old daughter with the impossible desire to prepare her for political and ecological catastrophe. Working in the tradition of James Baldwin, Maggie Nelson and Saidiya Hartman, Singh addresses subjects as wide and interconnected as race and legacies of colonialism, climate change and extractive capitalism, queer family-making, protest and the criminal justice system. Through this intimate form, Singh presents a remarkable vision of present collapse and future possibility. “

Singh is associate professor of English and women, gender, and sexuality studies at the University of Richmond in Virginia. A writer and academic, she works at the intersections of postcolonial studies, feminist and queer theory, and the environmental humanities. She is the author of 2018 books Unthinking Mastery: Dehumanism and Decolonial Entanglements (Duke University Press) and No Archive Will Restore You (Punctum Books).  

Marošević said: “Everyone at Daunt Books Publishing was floored by The Breaks. Singh models how to talk to children about race, police brutality and mass incarceration, and shows again and again how their reactions to these conversations have the power to reimagine the world for the better. Bringing us up to the present day, Singh suggests how we might daily break with past ways of acceptance, collective delusion and mass consumption. I could not be more thrilled to be publishing this visionary and moving book.”  

Singh added: “I can’t imagine a better beginning for The Breaks than to come into the world with Daunt Books, and to have a presence in the UK where I have already found so much solidarity and generosity in its readerships. The book began as a letter to my daughter about living in an impossibly destructive world, and for much of the writing I thought it might remain a text just for her. From this vantage point, it’s incredible to see it move toward publication on an international platform.”