Kitamura’s Intimacies to Jonathan Cape

Jonathan Cape has acquired two new books by Katie Kitamura, including her "taut and electrifying" novel Intimacies, about an interpreter pulled into "explosive political fires".

Michal Shavit, publishing director at Jonathan Cape, struck the two-book deal with Clare Conville at Conville & Walsh. Intimacies is slated for publication on 19th August and a second book will follow with details yet to be confirmed.

Kitamura teaches in the creative writing programme at New York University and is the author of A Separation (published in the UK by Profile's Clerkenwell Press), which was translated into 16 languages and is being adapted for film. Her two previous novels, Gone to the Forest and The Longshot, were both finalists for the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award.

In her new novel, an interpreter has come to The Hague to escape New York and work at the International Court. The synopsis reads: "A woman of many languages and identities, she is looking for a place to call home. She’s pulled into explosive political fires when she’s tasked with interpreting for a charismatic and mercurial former president accused of war crimes. She’s drawn into simmering personal dramas: her lover, Adriaan, is separated from his wife but still entangled in his marriage. Her friend Jana witnesses a seemingly random act of violence, a crime she becomes increasingly obsessed with. This woman is the voice in the ear of many, but what command does that give her, and how vulnerable does that leave her?"

Shavit said: "In a world where the word 'truth' has taken on new meanings and where the political has become increasingly enmeshed with the personal both online and off, it is a real wonder to spend time reading a writer such as Katie Kitamura, who so beautifully and subtly takes on these subjects in a novel of such great power. She brings coolness back to the word 'nuance' and we couldn’t be prouder to be welcoming her to Jonathan Cape in our centenary year."

Kitamura said: "Jonathan Cape has published many of the books that have defined me both as a reader and a writer, so it’s a great honor to join the Cape family, and a delight to find myself into the company of so many writers I admire."