Atlantic acquires Jean-Baptiste Andrea's Prix Goncourt-winning Watching Over Her

Atlantic has acquired Watching Over Her (Veiller sur Elle) by Jean-Baptiste Andrea, which won the Prix Goncourt.

Atlantic fiction editor Joanna Lee bought world English rights from Sophie Langlais at BAM, and the book will be translated by Frank Wynne and published in hardback in July 2025, with a paperback to follow.

"Watching Over Her is a sweeping love story across the class divide set against the backdrop of political turmoil in 20th-century Italy, following Mimo, an impoverished sculptor and Viola, the wealthy daughter of a powerful family, who love and lose each other countless times over a lifetime," the synopsis says.

Andrea commented: "I’m excited to start a new journey with Atlantic, a venture which seems to be a perfect fit for what I’m trying to achieve – literature that doesn’t forget its primary purpose: storytelling [...] I feared for a moment that nobody would understand a story which mixes friendship, love, history, religion, politics, art and maybe a bit of magic. Apparently, I was wrong."

Lee said: "I’m delighted to be publishing Watching Over Her, a hymn to friendship and freedom that has captivated over half a million readers in France already."