Elliott & Thompson scoops Rees' 'immersive travelogue' 

Elliott & Thompson has scooped Sunken Lands, an "immersive travelogue" by Gareth Rees. 

Publishing director Sarah Rigby commissioned and acquired world rights direct from the author. The book will be published in hardback and e-book on 21st March 2024.

In Sunken Lands, Rees explores the stories of flooded towns and cities that are sinking, or about to sink; from submerged forests and flooded villages to estuaries, threatened coastal towns and more. The synopsis reads: "Sunken Lands peels back the layers of silt, sea and mythology to show us that if we are to endure through the coming climate catastrophe, we need to understand and embrace the floodlands."

Elliott & Thompson senior editor Pippa Crane commented: "There is something endlessly mysterious and compelling about once-inhabited lands that now lie beneath the water. Gareth Rees does an extraordinary job in transporting us to those places, exploring the landscapes and flood myths that grew out of previous climatic events, and considering what it all might mean for us now, when in so many places the waters are rising once more."

Rees is the author of Unofficial Britain (Elliott & Thompson) longlisted for the Ondaatje Prize and a Sunday Times best book of the year 2020. He’s also the author of Car Park Life (Influx Press), The Stone Tide (Influx Press) and Marshland (Influx Press). His first short story collection, Terminal Zones (Influx Press), was published in 2022 and examines everyday life in a time of climate change. 

He added: "I’m fascinated by the way ancient flood legends and sunken ruins resonate in a time of global warming, and how the floods of the present could become future myths. To tell my story I visited a submerged Roman party town inside a volcano, a sinking village in Wales near a legendary lost city, a Louisiana wetland rapidly being consumed by the sea and a stone age forest on a beach that could soon become the seabed. It was an extraordinary journey."