Fitzcarraldo Editions snaps up Benoît Loiseau's The Clinic

Fitzcarraldo Editions has acquired Benoît Loiseau’s non-fiction debut, The Clinic: Radical Experiments in the Art of Care. 

Associate publisher Tamara Sampey-Jawad bought world English rights from Seren Adams at United Agents, and the book will be published in the autumn of 2025.

"Weaving together biography, cultural history and memoir, The Clinic is a ground-breaking exploration of seven experimental clinics and health care services in recent Western history", the synopsis says. "From a sex clinic housed in a stately mansion in Weimar Berlin to a code-named underground abortion service in 1970s Chicago, from a preventive health centre in pre-NHS London to the first HIV/AIDS support service in 1980s New York; and from La Borde, in post-war France – a radical hub of experimental psychology and medical philosophy, run for many years by Jean Oury and Félix Guattari – to experiences within Benoît’s own orbit: the clinic his health worker parents founded in Belgium and his terminally ill mother’s coming to terms with her own death." 

Sampey-Jawad commented: "Expansive and exhilarating, The Clinic is an acutely relevant project. Care is, after all, a reflection of what we value in our society and these trailblazing experiments, often undertaken by those who were marginalised or on the periphery, offer fascinating insights into how we might do things differently."

Loiseau said: "I’m humbled to see The Clinic included in Fitzcarraldo’s catalogue alongside so many authors I admire. I look forward to working with the team, particularly my editor Tamara Sampey-Jawad, who’s been nothing but supportive since my shortlisting for the 2022 Fitzcarraldo Essay Prize."