Fig Tree acquires ‘spirited and deeply moving’ new novel by Donkor

Michael Donkor’s Grow Where They Fall, a “beautifully written, spirited and deeply moving novel about a young man coming to terms with his past and finding the courage to expand the limits of who he might become”, has gone to Fig Tree.

Helen Garnons-Williams, publishing director, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Juliet Pickering at Blake Friedmann. Fig Tree will publish Grow Where They Fall as a lead title in summer 2024.

The synopsis reads: “Ten-year-old Kwame Akromah’s life is changed forever when Yaw, a charismatic 22-year-old from his parents’ homeland of Ghana, comes to stay with his family. Kwame’s carefully-ordered routine doesn’t quite know how to hold this brash young man within it, but the two form a close bond and mutual admiration, learning from each other, until their friendship comes to an abrupt end.

“Twenty years later, Kwame has become an upright young man with a respectable job as a teacher at an aspirational  secondary school, living just as cautiously as when he was a boy in order to keep himself ‘safe’. But when electrifying new headteacher, Marcus Felix, arrives out of the blue and bullishly challenges Kwame’s behaviour, Kwame finds himself questioning whether he’s living – or simply existing."

Donkor’s first novel, Hold, was published by Fourth Estate in 2018, and was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize. He was also selected by Scottish Poet Laureate Jackie Kay as one of the most important British writers working today.

He said: “I was amazed by and so grateful for the care and commitment Helen showed when editing Hold. It’s a total joy to be working with her again."

Garnons-Williams commented: “Grow Where They Fall is a huge-hearted novel about love, fear and the freedom to be oneself, written with compassion, humour and honesty.”

Pickering said the “skilful novel about the making of a ‘man’” had her “rapt” from the first lines.