Faber lands 'radical' non-fiction from Eula Biss

Faber is to publish Eula Biss' Having and Being Had, as part of a two-book deal. 

Associate publisher Laura Hassan acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada,  Australia and New Zealand, from David Grossman at the David Grossman Literary Agency.

Biss' latest title interrogates capitalism through a personal lens. Biss said: "My adult life can be divided into two distinct parts: the time before I owned a washing machine and the time after." 

The book synopsis says: "Having just purchased her first home, she now embarks on a roguish and risky self-audit of the value system she has bought into. The result is a radical interrogation of work, leisure and capitalism. Described by the New York Times as a writer who ‘advances from all sides, like a chess player’, Bliss brings her approach to the lived experience of capitalism. Playfully ranging from IKEA to Beyoncé to Pokémon, across bars and laundromats and universities, she asks, of both herself and her class, ‘In what have we invested?’"

Biss is the author of three books, including the New York Times bestseller On Immunity: An Inoculation, which was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2014 by the New York Times Book Review, and Notes from No Man’s Land: American Essays, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism. Her work has appeared in Harper’s, the New York Times, the Believer and elsewhere, and she has been supported by an NEA Literature Fellowship, a Howard Foundation Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Commenting on the acquisition, Hassan said: "Biss is one of the most original authors at work today. She delves into the stuff of life we try to avoid thinking about – in this case money, capitalism and privilege. There couldn’t be a better time to examine what we value and how we can live an ethical life."

Faber will publish Having and Being Had on 7th January 2021, with the second title as yet to be confirmed.