Canongate acquires Paul Alexander’s 'magnificent' biography of jazz star Billie Holiday

Canongate has acquired Bitter Crop, a new biography by Paul Alexander of jazz icon Billie Holiday.

C.e.o. Jamie Byng bought UK and Commonwealth rights – excluding Canada – from Serena Lehman at Knopf/Penguin Random House US, the originating publisher, which released the book in February 2024. Canongate will publish in July 2024, the 65th anniversary of Holiday’s death.

"Bitter Crop is an unconventional portrait of arguably America’s most influential and beloved jazz singer, Billie Holiday," the synopsis says. "Acclaimed biographer Paul Alexander shrewdly focuses on the last year of her life – with relevant flashbacks to provide context – to examine the persistent magnificence of Holiday’s artistry when it was supposed to have declined, in the wake of her drug abuse, relationships with violent men and her persecution by the FBI."

The synopsis adds: "During her lifetime and after her death, Billie Holiday was often depicted as a down-on-her-luck addict and dismissed as a troubled, unreliable and tragic victim. Relying on interviews with people who knew her and new material unearthed in private collections and institutional archives, Bitter Crop limns Holiday as a powerful, ambitious woman who overcame her flaws to triumph as a vital figure of American popular music."

Alexander has published eight books, including biographies of Sylvia Plath and J D Salinger. "Billie Holiday always loved her British audience because, she said, they treated her not merely as a singer but as an artist," he commented. "I’m grateful Canongate will publish my book this summer to mark the 65th anniversary of her death so that the British fans of Billie Holiday can read this intimate portrait and remember her."

Byng added: "Paul Alexander’s biography focuses ostensibly on the final year of Billie Holiday’s life but I think it will come to be regarded as the definitive biography of this extraordinary woman and artist."