Faber completes Chaudhuri's republication project to mark release of Sojourn

Faber has completed Amit Chaudhuri’s republication project to mark the publication of the paperback edition of Sojourn, and to round off the backlist reissue programme that commenced in 2022 with its original hardback publication.

Through this project, the publisher aims to highlight the design of seven of Chaudhuri’s previously published titles, as well as an original introduction to The Immortals by critic and author Pankaj Mishra. Also available in the UK for the first time are Afternoon Raag (Faber/Oneworld) with James Wood’s introduction and A Strange and Sublime Address (Faber/Oneworld) featuring an introduction by Colm Tóibín.

Publisher Alex Bowler acquired UK, Commonwealth, and EU rights (excluding India and Canada) to Sojourn and the seven backlist titles from Sarah Chalfant at the Wylie Agency. The synopsis of Sojourn says: "[It] is the story of an unnamed man who visits Berlin; an observer of the city and its residual fracture lines of history – and in trying to answer personal questions, navigates our endlessly porous ideas surrounding place, identity, time and exile."

The covers were shortlisted for Best Series Design at the 2023 Academy for British Cover Design Awards. Pete Adlington, art director of Faber, said of the design concept and backlist oeuvre: “The design for Sojourn offered a candid lens through which to watch the protagonist as he goes about his day in Berlin. The black-and-white imagery contrasts with the bright plane of colour.

"To allow a visual conversation between his latest novel and Amit’s backlist, I introduced a gradient on the right of the cover which bleeds through to Odysseus Abroad, which then bleeds through to Afternoon Raag and finishes at A Strange and Sublime Address but can carry back through to Sojourn. With the further four titles the colour cycle begins again, linking Amit’s writing through snapshots of human experience and a blended field of colour.” 

Commissioning editor Emmie Francis commented: “Amit Chaudhuri is a distinctly contemporary writer. His work will always be of the time – and it will always be important. From his short fiction to his longer novels, from his non-fiction that is fused through with his artistry as a performing classical Indian musician (and for which he won The James Tait Black award in 2022), the literature that results from his ranging and yet exacting mind will enlighten readers for time to come."