Canongate clinches Tahmima Anam's fourth novel in six-figure deal

Canongate has signed a six-figure deal for London-based author Tahmima Anam's fourth novel, The Startup Wife, about life "in the age of peak technology".

C.e.o. Jamie Byng and editor-at-large Ellah Wakatama Allfrey of Canongate have acquired world rights excluding India from Sarah Chalfant at the Wylie Agency, as part of a six-figure deal. Nan Graham, Scribner senior vicepresident and publisher, and Kara Watson, executive editor, have acquired North American rights. Canongate and Scribner will publish simultaneously in spring 2021. In a separate deal, Penguin Random House India have acquired rights in the Indian subcontinent from Sarah Chalfant. 

The Startup Wife "takes a sharp, satirical look at marriage, work, and female friendship in the age of peak technology," Canongate said. "When high school sweethearts Asha Ray and Cyrus Jones build an algorithm to replace religion, they have no idea they will someday be running WAI, one of the most popular social media platforms in the world. As WAI grows in numbers and influence, their marriage is tested as Asha finds herself increasingly in Cyrus' shadow." 

The book is billed as "a quirky, deeply intelligent and absorbing story of friendship, love, big dreams and feminist geek-dom [which] signals an ambitious new direction in Anam’s fiction as she interrogates global contemporary culture in the digital age". 

The Women’s Prize winner Kamila Shamsie has described the novel as “fresh, funny, brave, savage, smart—Tahmima Anam hits every note perfectly in this novel about our new reality and the age-old problems of men and women that no app can fix”.

Anam said: “Canongate are a dream publisher for any writer and any novel, but for this one, which is so close to my heart, I could not imagine more perfect partners than the awe-inspiring duo of Jamie Byng and Ellah Wakatama Allfrey. And I am doubly delighted to be joining the amazing list at Scribner in the US.”

“Tahmima Anam is one of my favourite writers we publish at Canongate but nothing could quite prepare me for her new novel, The Startup Wife,” Byng commented. “It’s not only a significant and very exciting departure for Tahmima as a writer – it is also one of the most satisfying, smart, entertaining, timely and moving love stories I have read in years. 

"We have great ambitions for this book which we are confident we can help to make an international bestseller.  It is thrilling that Scribner shares our enthusiasm for the novel and I believe this early American sale is likely to be the first of many deals we do around the world for this brilliant book.”

Allfrey said of the deal with the Bangladeshi-born British author: “There’s an exhilarating confidence to Tahmima’s prose style in this new book. That, along with the perceptiveness and intelligence she brings to bear on contemporary life, love and the world of work and the emotional intelligence readers of her previous books will recognise, makes The Startup Wife a truly universal and hugely accessible book that will draw a whole new audience to her work.”

Anam is the award-winning author of three novels including the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize-winning A Golden Age. Her work has been published in Granta, the New York Times, and the Guardian. In 2013 the London-based writer was selected as one of Granta magazine’s Best of Young British Novelists. Her short stories have been awarded an O Henry Award and shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award. She is a Harvard-educated anthropologist and board director of music technology start-up ROLI. The Startup Wife is her fourth novel with previous novels such as A Golden Age and The Bones of Grace also published by Canongate.