Faber snares 'outstanding' new novel from Goldsmiths Prize-shortlisted Oyeyemi

Faber has snared Parasol against the Axe, an "outstanding" new novel from Goldsmiths Prize-shortlisted Helen Oyeyemi, the author of Peaces (Faber).

Associate publisher Louisa Joyner acquired UK, Commonwealth and EU rights, excluding Canada, from Tracy Bohan at the Wylie Agency, and the novel is due to publish on 1st February 2024.

The book is set during a weekend spent in Prague and is described by the publisher "as dazzling as it is effortlessly unique". The synopsis says: "Get lost in the story like you would an unfamiliar city and let it reward you with moments of philosophical clarity, wheelbarrow rides, raw emotion and raw onions.

"This novel is a holiday, an adventure, a marvel and a guide. It is a story about the lies behind the lies we tell and a city as a living thing, sustained by the lives of its inhabitants. Suffused with warmth and joy, Parasol against the Axe is a love letter to Prague, and to the art of storytelling."

Joyner said: "Helen Oyeyemi is a novelist of paradigmatic genius. As Ali Smith said in her celebration of the Goldsmiths Prize, the best fiction can be mould-breaking – Parasol against the Axe takes the mould and melts it."

Oyeyemi added: "There doesn’t seem to be any way to persuade the city of Prague to assume a main-character role. Bargaining, flattery and all the rest – none of it works. Eventually I had to resort to letting Prague believe that I was no longer interested in fictionalising it while surreptitiously painting a kind of indirect portrait, imagining the kinds of hopes, ideas and memories that this city could value more than main-character status, and just going from there."