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Canongate wins Top Boy novel from Ronan Bennett
Canongate has secured world rights in a novel by Ronan Bennett, set in the London portrayed by Bennett in his TV drama "Top Boy". The deal for the book was negotiated by Jamie Byng at Canongate with David Godwin at David Godwin Associates. US rights were sold to Rakesh Satyal at HarperVia and Canadian rights to Iris Tupholme at HarperCollins Canada.
Written and co-produced by Bennett, the TV show "Top Boy" was picked up by Netflix after two seasons on Channel 4. The novel will be edited by Ellah Wakatama at Canongate, and published after the fifth and final season of the drama has been broadcast by Netflix in 2023.
Bennett is the author of The Catastrophist (Headline Publishing Group), which won the Irish Post Literature Award and was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel Award. His book Havoc, In Its Third Year (Simon & Schuster) won Irish Novel of the Year and was longlisted for the Booker Prize.
Bennett said: “I could not be more delighted that Top Boy the novel is being published by Canongate, a publisher I’ve long admired. The relevance of Top Boy and the complicated lives lived on the fictional Summerhouse estate seems more pertinent today than ever as the multiple crises we all face become ever more pressing."
Byng commented: “I’ve been a big fan of Ronan’s writing for many years as well as a huge fan of ’Top Boy’ from the moment it first blasted onto our screens over a decade ago. So the prospect of publishing a ’Top Boy’ novel written by Ronan is almost too good to be true.”
Wakatama added: “I have appreciated and loved the sensitivity and humanity with which Ronan Bennett conceives and develops his characters – both in his novels and his writing for television. There is such thoughtfulness in his creations, as well as the thrill and drama of lives lived on the margins.
"All of this feels a perfect match for Canongate and I am delighted to have this chance to work with him on a book that promises to be a robust standalone as well as a gripping accompaniment to the series.”
