Bloomsbury scoops psychosis memoir from Curtis Brown agent Catherine Cho

Bloomsbury has won a first-hand account of postpartum psychosis by Curtis Brown associate agent Catherine Cho, in a six-way auction.

Bloomsbury’s editorial director Alexa von Hirschberg and commissioning editor Angelique Tran Van Sang acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to the debut, Inferno: A Memoir, from Sophie Lambert at C&W.

Bloomsbury described the title as “written in prose of exceptional precision” and “destined to become a classic of the memoir form, reminiscent of Joan Didion’s A Year of Magical Thinking and Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air”. Bloomsbury will publish in July 2020.

“When Catherine set off for the US with her husband James to introduce her family to their newborn son Cato, she could not have envisaged how that trip would end,” the synopsis reads. “Catherine would find herself in an involuntary psych ward in New Jersey, separated from her husband and child.

“In this unwaveringly honest, insightful and often shocking memoir, Catherine reconstructs her sense of self by pulling together strands from her early childhood, a harrowing previous relationship, and her eventual marriage to James – as well the unimaginable horror of finding herself separated from her baby and locked up in a hospital.”

Cho works in publishing as an associate agent at Curtis Brown in London. She joined the agency to work as an assistant to Jonny Geller in 2015 and then began building her own list last year. Originally from the US, she lived in New York and Hong Kong, before moving to London.

Von Hirschberg, who is due to replace Lee Brackstone as head of Faber Social in September, described Inferno: A Memoir as “work of art”. She said: “Not only is Catherine a singularly talented sentence writer, her motivation to tell her story – to dispel the shame and silence around mental illness and motherhood – has fuelled a courage and honesty that elevates this story to something beyond memoir.”

Tran Van Sang said: “This is a rare book. Emotionally devastating, yet written in prose of such lucidity - in spite of the subject matter [with] mastery and resonance.”

Cho said: “I'm delighted to be working with Bloomsbury. I've been overwhelmed by the response to this book, and Bloomsbury's passion and vision for it has been incredibly inspiring. It's a privilege to share my story, and it is my hope that by doing so, we will start a conversation about mental health, about motherhood, and identity.”

Lambert said: “Unwaveringly honest, insightful and often shocking, Catherine has written a truly important memoir and I know that Bloomsbury will publish Inferno with the passion and ambition it deserves.”