Amaurea Press signs autobiography from St Aubin de Terán

Amaurea Press has signed Better Broken Than New: A Fragmented Memoir, the first book in nearly 20 years from Lisa St Aubin de Terán.

Publisher Jonathan Curry-Machado acquired worldwide rights from Andrew Lownie at Andrew Lownie Literary Agency. The book will be published in hardback on 24th January 2024.

St Aubin de Terán was selected as a Granta Best of Young British Novelists in 1982 and has written 20 works of fiction, non-fiction and short stories. Since then, she has lived in a remote village in Mozambique and founded a charity, The Terán Foundation. Amaurea Press will also be issuing new editions of St Aubin de Terán’s backlist beginning in October 2023 with Keepers of the House, The Slow Train to Milan and The Tiger. Over the following months, more titles will be brought back into print. 

In her autobiography, Better Broken, St Aubin de Terán "puts the shattered pieces of her life back together, filling in many of the dramatic and, often scandalous, gaps". She commented: "I sat down to write Better Broken than New, a fragmented memoir to set the record straight and fill in the gaps. And in 2020 I finally reached out to my support network in London only to find that it had slipped away. Galvanised by a particularly brutal cyclone taking the roof off the house I was living in, I eventually made it back to the UK. And now, based on a houseboat on the River Thames, I am on the brink of re-launching my career with three new books and dozens of short stories and I am as excited this time around as I was when my first novel was accepted. Much as I loved living in Africa and finding my own African roots, I knew I was missing the literary world and meeting my readers, but I didn’t realise quite how much that was until I jumped back in." 

Curry-Machado said: “It is a real pleasure, and a great honour, that Lisa has chosen Amaurea to publish her new writing. Her ability to fill the world and life with a sense of beauty and age, opportunity and danger, magic and adventure, not only through her words but also her own lived experience, continues to be an inspiration. We are delighted that alongside her new books, we have the opportunity to bring her previous work back into print as well, so that the timelessness of her writing can continue to be discovered and enjoyed by future generations.”