ZunTold to publish YA novel on male eating disorders

ZunTold will publish a young adult novel on male eating disorders next year, as part of their new Fiction as Therapy arm, and coinciding with charity Beat’s Eating Disorders Awareness Week.

The Year I Didn’t Eat by Samuel Pollen will be published in March 2019, with the fiction title “drawing from the author’s own personal experience of anorexia”, ZunTold Publishing said.

Focusing on 14-year-old protagonist Max, ZunTold says “the novel is an uplifting story showing the highs and lows of life with an eating disorder, and the effect on family and friends as well as the individual.”

The Year I Didn’t Eat will be the first novel in the publisher’s new Fiction as Therapy division. Working closely with mental health professionals, Fiction as Therapy will be publishing a tranche of new titles with therapeutic value, with an aim of supporting young people and their mental health. The Fiction as Therapy offering will also be supported with guided reading resources for educators and mental health professionals.

ZunTold founder and md Elaine Bousfield said: “I’m absolutely delighted to be publishing The Year I Didn’t Eat this spring. Sam is a brilliant writer and is really bringing something new and vital to the YA market.

“Men’s and boy’s mental health has been hitting the headlines over the past year, so it’s so important to address these issues and help young people to talk about their problems. Our Fiction as Therapy series will hopefully help do just that, and support young people with their own voyage of discovery.”

Pollen's debut novel The Year I Didn’t Eat is available from 1st March 2019, £7.99.