Pushkin Press sells North American rights to Penguin for How to be a Fascist

Pushkin Press has sold North American rights to Penguin Books US for How to be a Fascist by Italian author and politician Michela Murgia.

Adam Freudenheim, publisher and m.d. at Pushkin Press negotiated the deal with Patrick Nolan, editor-in-chief at Penguin Books in New York, for the "short, bitingly ironic book which explores the logic that is attracting increasing numbers of voters to right-wing populism". Pushkin will publish the book on 16th January 2020 in paperback original. Penguin will publish its edition in summer 2020 ahead of the US presidential nominating conventions.

Pushkin said: "How to be a Fascist caused a sensation on first publication in Italy just over a year ago and has since been published in Germany and Spain." 

Regarding the deal, Nolan said: "We tend to casually toss around the term ‘fascism’ but do we have a clear understanding of what it actually means? Murgia’s short, clever, insightful guide sharpens our understanding and exposes the dangerous techniques of smashing truth for the purpose of power grabs—it’s an essential tool for understanding the threats we face in our world."

Ending with a "fascistometer" to measure readers' own authoritarian inclinations, How to be a Fascist is billed as a “refreshingly direct, polemical book that asks us to confront the fascists in our governments, in our societies and in our own minds”.

Murgia is an award-winning Italian writer and a political activist. She has written travel books, political non-fiction and novels, for which she has been awarded the Premio Campiello and the Mondello International Literary prize.