Faber bags book on Gertrude Stein from Francesca Wade

Faber is to publish two non-fiction titles by editor and author Francesca Wade, including one on Gertrude Stein. 

Associate publisher Laura Hassan acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Caroline Dawnay and Sophie Scard at United Agents, for Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife, due for publication in spring 2024, and a second untitled book to follow in 2027. The proposal was an exclusive submission to Faber.

Both books build on Wade's first title, Square Haunting (also Faber), about five trailblazing women in the interwar years, which was longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction and launched her as a biographer focusing on women's lives.

Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife  is a meditation on biography and memory told through the life of Stein, "seeking to pierce the fictions and fabrications that have always shadowed her and asking what is forgotten when a character is canonised", according to the publisher. Wade will use unseen material to tell Stein's story in a fresh light.

Meanwhile an as-yet-untitled book will transport readers to 1970s New York, telling the story of the decade through the interconnected lives and experiences of a group of female poets and activists, including Muriel Rukeyser, Denise Levertov, Grace Paley, June Jordan, Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich, focusing on the way their art and their politics intertwined.

Hassan said: "These exhilarating and assured proposals put Francesca Wade confidently on track to become one of the UK's finest biographers. In the first book, she is shining a new light on the nature of biography, as well as on Gertrude Stein and Alice B Toklas, and it is an enthralling mix. With her second book, she'll delve into the female poets and activities of tumultuous 1970s New York and explore lives unconventionally lived. Working with Francesca has been an absolute dream and I expect readers will fall in love with these subjects just as they did with the five women of Square Haunting."

Wade's writing has appeared in the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, the Paris Review, the Guardian, Frieze and the New Statesman. She is outgoing editor of the White Review and a recipient of a Robert B Silvers Grant for Work in Progress and a 2020–21 Fellowship at the Leon Levy Center for Biography.

She said: "I'm thrilled to be working again with the wonderful team at Faber, whose support, enthusiasm and generosity was invaluable to my first book. Square Haunting proposed a form of biography centred on community and collectivity, on recovering hidden histories and on challenging the scripts by which lives are lived and stories are told; I'm excited to build on that project across two further books, and am very much looking forward to returning to the archives."