Hamish Hamilton promotes Thompson and Chukwu after strong 2020 sales

Hamish Hamilton has promoted Hermione Thompson and Hannah Chukwu, with publishing director Simon Prosser hailing the best sales in at least a decade for the imprint in 2020.

The changes see Thompson (pictured, top) made commissioning editor and Chukwu step up to assistant editor, effective from 1st Feburary.

Announcing the promotions, Prosser acknowledges 2020 had been a “tough year” but said Hamish Hamilton had its best sales in at least a decade. Sales were up 14.5% year on year, he said, buoyed by the "phenomenon" of Bernardine Evaristo’s Booker-winning Girl, Woman, Other.

Prosser also praised the success of Ali Smith’s Summer, Zadie Smith’s Intimations, Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris’ The Lost Spells, Arundhati Roy’s Azadi, Alain de Botton’s The School of Life, the Booker-shortlisted Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi, and “a raft of backlist paperbacks, from Pat Barker to Noam Chomsky, from Marlon James to J D Salinger”. He said Thompson and Chukwu had made an “essential contribution” to that success.

Thompson, previously an editor, has “excelled in discovering new voices in fiction”, Prosser said. Writers she has worked with include Sophie Mackintosh, Doshi and Lara Williams, alongside debut authors like Natasha Brown, whose Assembly is released this June, and Ayanna Lloyd, author of February 2022's The Gatekeepers. She has also acquired non-fiction such as Rafia Zakaria’s Against White Feminism, and worked closely with Prosser on projects like The Lost Spells.

“I can’t wait to see what Hermione brings to the list in the years to come,” Prosser said.

Chukwu (pictured, right), previously an editorial assistant, has worked alongside Prosser on all aspects of Hamish Hamilton's publishing and is also the in-house editor for for the Black Britain: Writing Back series with Evaristo, which aims to resurrect texts from the past to reconfigure British literary history. The first six novels are released on 4th February, and Chukwu is currently working on six non-fiction books to follow.

Prosser said: “This long-planned project, essential to the DNA of Hamish Hamilton, would not have been possible without Hannah’s energy and commitment, and I am looking forward hugely to all that she will bring, both backlist and frontlist, to our publishing next.”