Canongate seizes Yann Martel's tale of the Trojan War

Canongate has acquired Son of Nobody, a retelling of the Trojan War "hot-wired for the 21st century" by Booker Prize- winner Yann Martel.

Publisher-at-large Francis Bickmore bought UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada and Australia and New Zealand, from Meg Wheeler and Jackie Kaiser at Westwood Creative Artists, based on an early draft. Canongate is planning to publish alongside Knopf Canada in spring 2024.

"Unlike Homer’s version, which focuses on nobles and kings, this version reveals the story of an unsung hero, Psoas of Midea, the son of a goatherd, a commoner who leaves his wife and children behind in order to help Menelaus get his beautiful wife back," the synopsis states. "His story is discovered 30 centuries later by a scholar on his own particular epic quest."

Martel is the author of the 2002 Man Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi (Canongate), an international bestseller published in more than 50 territories, which has sold more than 15 million copies worldwide according to the publisher, and spent more than a year on the New York Times bestseller list. It  was adapted for the screen by Ang Lee, and a stage adaptation, by Lolita Chakrabarti, is currently on an extended run in London’s West End, following a world premiere at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre in 2019.

Martel has written several other novels, and a collection of letters to the prime minister of Canada, 101 Letters to a Prime Minister (VIntage Books Canada.)

"I’m delighted to be publishing with Canongate again. It’s a privilege, an honour and a real pleasure," he said. 

Bickmore added: "Yann Martel has gone back to the best-known war story of all time, made famous by Homer, and hotwired it for the 21st century. What if the version we know is wrong, told to celebrate the nobles and ignoring the real heroes? And how much do the themes of war, valour, sacrifice, nobility relate to us now? This abundant novel of ideas from Martel, a master of invention, is an imaginative feast that plays with time, history and the nature of story itself."