Allen Lane lands 'gripping' memoir by ex-trader Stevenson in 12-way auction for six figures

Allen Lane has bagged a “gripping” memoir by ex-trader turned campaigner Gary Stevenson in a “significant” six-figure deal after a 12-publisher auction. 

Tom Penn, publishing director, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to The Trading Game from Chris Wellbelove at Aitken Alexander Associates. North American rights sold to Paul Whitlatch at Crown Currency at auction. Rights have also sold to Ambo Anthos in the Netherlands and to Hayakawa in Japan, with an auction underway in Germany. Allen Lane will publish the book in spring 2024. 

The synopsis says: “Gary Stevenson grew up in Ilford on the outskirts of east London, in a terraced house sandwiched between an abandoned factory and a recycling centre. His was an upbringing dominated by poverty, struggle and, as the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf started to dominate his horizons, the desire to escape to something bigger. 

“Then he won a competition, The Trading Game, run by a global investment bank. It was his passport to the trading floor. After 2008, as the economy tanked, he thrived, making more money than he had ever imagined. Three years later, by betting on the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, he was Citibank’s most profitable trader. In the world. He was also a millionaire.   

“But how long can you make money by gaining from the ruin of others, as wealth flows away from ordinary families to an increasingly super-rich elite? Not long, it turns out. Within a couple of years, depressed and disillusioned, Gary quit. The penny dropped: inequality is the problem. And he had to do something. Then all hell broke loose…” 

Stevenson left trading in 2014, convinced that solving inequality was the only way to repair the world economy. He has since studied for an MSc at Oxford, worked with economic think-tanks and founded a YouTube channel, GarysEconomics, explaining economics to ordinary people. He regularly appears on television and radio and has written for the Guardian and OpenDemocracy, among others. 

He said: “I was a very young man when I was a trader, and I witnessed so many amazing and terrible things. In many ways, at that time, I was alone, and so it has been a wonderful experience to start writing this story down, and have people read it and be affected by it. I can’t wait to share it with the world, and I’m endlessly grateful to Tom Penn and the rest of the team at Allen Lane for giving me the opportunity to do that.” 

Penn added: “‘Gary is an exceptional talent, and we are so delighted to welcome him to Penguin Press with The Trading Game. This is a journey to the dark heart of our financial system: it’s gripping, immersive storytelling in the service of profound political change. Gary sees it like no-one else can, and in doing so he offers a glimpse of something better, for all of us. This is a story of our times, for our times: an instant classic by a born storyteller.”