Daunt Books lands Sax's debut Yr Dead

Daunt Books has landed Yr Dead, a "queer, diasporic bildungsroman" by Sam Sax. 

Editor Dredhëza Maloku acquired UK and Commonwealth (excluding Canada) rights from Rachel Clements at Abner Stein, on behalf of Massie & McQuilkin Literary Agents in New York. Yr Dead is Sax’s debut novel and will publish in August 2024. 

It is described as a “queer, diasporic bildungsroman told through the eyes of Ezra, who has just lit themselves on fire outside Trump Tower in 2016”. “The world of the book unfolds as their life flashes across time and geography in a series of vignettes that are at once fluorescently beautiful and tragic” the publisher teased. “It is a novel that revels in estrangement, in feeling queer and out of place, or feeling queer and at home; in what makes us feel alive.” 

Sax is a two-time Bay Area Grand Slam Champion, with poems published in the New York Times, Granta and Poetry Magazine. They have won a James Laughlin Award and currently teach at Stanford University. 

Sax said: "In this book I’m interested in the strange moments that build towards the grand gestures of our lives – in the many ways we’re shaped by forces beyond our control (through language, inheritance, history, systems) and how these play out in the minutiae of our desires and alienation. Yr Dead presented an opportunity to live inside a mind doing the impossible task of trying to make sense of a world that is utterly beautiful, devastating and incomprehensible.” 

Maloku added: “Yr Dead is a rare gift of a book. Sax creates a propulsive space in which to test the limits of fiction and explore how historical memory shapes our political and emotional present, and intersects with protest, religion and desire. Sax tackles complex, timely themes yet their novel wears them lightly, rich with warmth and tenderness. I’m so pleased to be introducing Sax’s debut novel to a UK audience, and to welcome them to the Daunt list.”