Canongate acquires Nation of Strangers by Turkish political thinker Ece Temelkuran

Canongate has acquired Turkish author and political thinker Ece Temelkuran’s Nation of Strangers: Redefining Home for the 21st Century.

C.e.o. Jamie Byng acquired world rights in the book from Laurence Laluyaux at Rogers, Coleridge & White. Spanish, French, Italian and German rights have already been sold by Canongate to Anagrama, Stock, Bollati Boringhieri and Rowohlt respectively, the latter after a three-way auction. Editorial director Simon Thorogood will edit the book, and Canongate will launch in hardback in June 2025.

Byng has also acquired world English rights from Fourth Estate in two of Temelkuran’s previous works of political commentary, How to Lose a Country and Together. These will publish into Canongate’s Canons list and the publisher will also be handling the translation rights for these two titles, alongside Nation of Strangers.

"Nation of Strangers aims to open a global conversation about our evolving understanding of home, in the way How to Lose a Country did for the global rise of Fascism and Together did for the progressive politics of emotions as an antidote to new Fascism", the synopsis says.

Temelkuran commented: "I wrote How To Lose A Country and Together after I left my country, my home. Now Canongate publishing Nation of Strangers and the two previous books is like finally arriving home.

"It is quite serendipitous to enter Canongate with a book about home. It feels like that long and serene exhale when you open the door to home after a long and arduous journey. I am blessed to work with Jamie Byng, Simon Thorogood and all the incredible members of the Canongate team. As the poet Nagib Mahfouz says, ’home is where all your attempts to escape cease’ and Canongate feels just like that."

Byng added: "I was introduced last year by Brian Eno to the work of Ece Temelkuran and then to Ece herself, and from the moment I started to read her incisive, wise, sobering, witty and challenging books, I felt that here was a writer we must publish at Canongate. Subsequently, we met and I felt even more certain that Ece was a thinker of true importance and great originality who would sit brilliantly on our list. I can’t quite believe that less than a year ago I was not even aware of her name."