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Kumar and Clowes join Viking Non-Fiction as Brown steps up
Viking Non-Fiction has announced a series of new hires and promotions, with Shyam Kumar and Greg Clowes joining alongside a promotion for Connor Brown.
Kumar, currently commissioning editor at Trapeze and Seven Dials, will join Viking later this month as senior commissioning editor, publishing in areas including popular culture, comedy and sport.
He joined Hachette in 2015, and at Trapeze he has worked on books including Adam Kay’s Dear NHS and the "Schitt’s Creek" book Best Wishes, Warmest Regards. His commissioning includes proactively acquiring Phil Hay’s book on Leeds United And It Was Beautiful and Let’s Talk by Nihal Arthanayake. The appointment follows the departure from Viking of Tom Killingbeck, to become an agent at A M Heath. Kumar will start on 30th August.
Clowes, currently covering Connor Brown’s secondment from Viking to Bodley Head, has joined Viking permanently in the new role of commissioning editor. Clowes will acquire in areas including narrative non-fiction, history and investigative reportage. He was formerly assistant editor at Chatto, where he acquired books including the New York Times bestseller Begin Again by Eddie S Glaude Jr and where he worked with authors including Taran N Khan, Ross King and Adam Brookes, and at Viking his acquisitions include Cara McGoogan’s The Poison Line, an exposé of the UK’s contaminated blood scandal.
On 14th September, Brown will be returning to Viking from his secondment at The Bodley Head as editorial director covering Will Hammond’s parental leave, and will be promoted to be editorial director at Viking. He was the editor for Devi Sridhar’s Sunday Times bestseller Preventable and Vaclav Smil’s How The World Really Works, which hit the New York Times bestseller list and was one of the five books Bill Gates said to read this summer, and his acquisitions include Ben Ansell’s Why Politics Fails and Arik Kershenbaum’s How Animals Talk. He will publish big ideas books including science and current affairs.
Alexandra Mulholland joined Viking this month in the new role of editorial assistant. This follows the promotion to assistant editor earlier this year of Alpana Sajip, whose acquisitions include Krithika Varagur’s The Singh Princesses at auction, and who has jointly acquired Diane Abbott’s memoir and Paris Spies-Gans’ A New Story of Art and will acquire in areas including current affairs, biography and culture. Also acquiring for the Viking Non-Fiction list is editorial director for fiction Isabel Wall, who published Natasha Lunn’s Sunday Times bestseller Conversations on Love.
Daniel Crewe, publishing director for Viking Non-Fiction, said: “I am so delighted to be working with this all-star team, all of whom have their own areas of focus while being team players too. Thanks to the hard and brilliant work of everyone working on our books, it’s been a thrilling time at Viking, and we’re all hugely excited about what’s to come.”
