Aardvark signs two-book deal with Rose-Innes

Aardvark Bureau has signed a two-book deal with South African author Henrietta Rose-Innes.

Aardvark acquired UK and British Commonwealth rights (excluding Canada and Southern Africa) to the novels Nineveh and Green Lion from Isobel Dixon of Blake Friedmann.

Nineveh was shortlisted for South Africa’s "most prestigious" literary award, the Sunday Times Fiction Prize, in 2012. Green Lion was also a finalist for the same award, announced last weekend.

Both novels convey a strong sense of the Cape Town where Rose-Innes grew up. They explore the tensions between the natural and man-made worlds, and the ways in which we perceive the animal kingdom – "beguiling, semi-mystical, endangered and dangerous, familiar and unknowable".

Ninevah, to be published simultaneously in November 2016 by Aardvark Bureau in the UK and British Commonwealth and by Unnamed Press in the USA, tells the story of Katya Grubbs, Cape Town’s only ethical pest removal specialist. When called to tackle a mysterious infestation at a new luxury housing development on the fringes of the city, Katya finds herself having to deal with unwelcome intrusions from the past.

In Green Lion, Con steps in as the keeper of Sekhmet, the world’s last remaining black-maned lioness, when his school friend is mauled at a breeding zoo. Drawn to the powerful creature, he finds himself testing the boundaries that separate the animal and human worlds, and reliving dark moments of his own history. Green Lion will be published in autumn 2017.

Editor at Aardvark Jane Aitken said: "In these two masterful novels, Henrietta Rose-Innes’s beautiful prose intrigues, entrances and entertains. We are thrilled to bring Rose-Innes to the UK market."

Rose-Innes said: "I'm tremendously excited to introduce my books to readers in the UK and elsewhere – and I can't think of a better home for them than Aardvark Bureau, with its fresh and adventurous list of global titles."