Europa signs Shawn's 'sharply perceptive' essay collection

Europa Editions has landed actor and playwright Wallace Shawn's "unfailingly entertaining" collection of essays. 

Sleeping Among Sheep Under a Starry Sky details Shawn's observations and thoughts on the "real world". Europa Editions acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, and non-exclusive rights in Europe, Australia and New Zealand from the author. The collection will be released in August 2022. 

Wallace's career highlights span 40 years, and include voicing the character of Rex the dinosaur in "Toy Story", "My Dinner with Andre", the 1981 film he co-wrote and starred in with Andre Gregory, and various roles in six Woody Allen films. 

His career as an actor has developed side by side with writing plays and essays since an early age. The publisher said: "For our part, we have no doubt Shawn’s essays are unerringly piercing, sharply perceptive, and unfailingly entertaining as well as enriching. This is a project very close to our hearts and we are honoured and excited to bring Sleeping Among Sheep to readers in the UK and Ireland." 

Shawn said: "I'm so happy to be able to tell people that a collection of my essays from the last thirty-five years will be published by Europa Editions. Having spent my professional life in the somewhat silly world of make-believe, the world of theatre and film, I've observed the real world only by way of my peripheral vision. It will be up to the reader to decide whether this has given me an unusual or valuable perspective or not."