Europa Editions lands Melvin's 'luminous' debut

Europa Editions is to publish The Betrayed, a "profound and compelling debut novel" by award-winning Filipino-American author Reine Arcache Melvin.

The Betrayed tells the story of two sisters who love the same man. As dictatorship and political upheaval ravage the Philippines, the sisters' conflicting passions threaten to lead them to betray not only each other, but all the beliefs their activist father stood for.

The publisher said of the novel: "A luminous exploration of the deepest emotions that drive human beings, and the study of a country in all its complexity, The Betrayed is a shining example of the fiction we aim to publish at Europa, stories that bridge cultures and bring people closer."

World rights, excluding Asia, were bought by Rome-based editor Lucrezia Lazzari from Astier-Pécher Literary & Film Agency, negotiated by agent Jerome Bouchaud. Europa's sister publishing house Edizioni E/O will publish in Italian. The book was previously published in the Philippines by Ateneo de Manila University Press in October 2018.

Melvin said: “I’ve been following Europa for many years now, admiring what it publishes: the selectiveness and scope, the quality and international vision. There is such a need in this world, fractured by exclusiveness and exclusion, disrupted by mass displacements, to experience the other from the inside, to stop fearing and attacking difference, to hear voices from countries and cultures that are often silenced on the world stage. International literature opens our minds and hearts. It is an incredible honour, as a Filipina and as a writer, to be part of Europa’s vision, to bring some of my country’s stories to readers who may not know my characters’ worlds but may find in them the political and personal urgencies that we are all dealing with, in some form or another, wherever we come from.”

The Betrayed will be published on 10th February 2022.