Faber bags 'intimate' debut after seven-way auction

Faber has acquired Conversations with Friends, a "startling" and "intimate" debut novel from Sally Rooney, after a seven-way auction.

Publisher Mitzi Angel bought UK and Commonwealth rights to Conversations with Friends in a two-book deal from Tracy Bohan at the Wylie Agency.

Conversations with Friends is a "startling, intimate" story of high risk relationships, youth and love.

Angel said: "To say Conversations with Friends is a delight does no justice to just how brainy it is. And to say Conversations with Friends is cerebral is potentially to mislead—because the book is so much fun. Sally Rooney’s cracklingly brilliant first novel addresses serious matters—politics, feminism, sex, love—with a lightness of touch. Through the rhythms of today’s speech and through instant messaging and email and text messages, it captures what it’s like to be figuring how to to live and to love in the early 21st century. Sally Rooney is a remarkable talent and we’re thrilled to welcome her to Faber & Faber."

Conversations with Friends has been sold by the Wylie Agency to 12 publishers thus far: Alfaguara (Brazil); Rosinante & Co. (Denmark); Varrak (Estonia); Editions de L’Olivier (France); Luchterhand (Germany); Einaudi (Italy); Ambo/Anthos (Netherlands); Cappelen Damm (Norway); Literatura Random House (Spain); Bonniers (Sweden); Hogarth Press (US); Faber & Faber (UK).

Rooney was born in 1991 in the West of Ireland, and lives in Dublin, where she graduated from Trinity College. Her work has appeared in Granta, The Dublin Review, The Stinging Fly, and The Winter Pages anthology.

Conversations with Friends will be published in 2017.