You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
Duckworth Books snaps up Rey Lescure's 'stunning' debut
Duckworth Books has snapped up Aube Rey Lescure’s "stunning" debut, River East River West.
Rowan Cope, publisher, acquired UK and Commonwealth volume rights from Lucy Morris at Curtis Brown on behalf of Hillary Jacobson at CAA. The novel will be published in hardback in January 2024.
Told with an "exquisitely crafted dual timeline", River East River West follows Alva, a rebellious American-Chinese teenager in Shanghai 2007 and Lu Fang, a clerk in 1985 who survives the Cultural Revolution. The publisher continued: "A mesmerising and moving reversal of the east–west immigrant narrative set against China’s economic boom, it explores race, identity and family, capitalism’s false promise and private dreams."
Rey Lescure grew up living in Provence, northern China and Shanghai and worked in foreign policy before becoming a full-time writer. She commented: "It is so meaningful for my novel to have found a home at Duckworth – for their storied literary history as the publisher of Yu Hua’s China in Ten Words and so many other excellent works, but also for Rowan and her team’s impeccable vision for this book."
Cope said: "Aube’s debut has already attracted praise from the likes of Garth Greenwell, Vanessa Hua and Jean Kwok – because the writing is simply of superlative quality. This insider-outsider portrait of China on the cusp of two significant moments – the ‘reform and opening’ of the late 1980s, and the financial crash of 2008 – is both eye-opening about a culture that remains largely mysterious yet fascinating to the west, and a bittersweet portrait of a family’s struggles."
