Fitzcarraldo lands debut novel by 'extraordinary' Briggs

Fitzcarraldo Editions’ has bagged author and translator Kate Brigg’s debut novel The Long Form.

Publisher Jacques Testard acquired world rights to the novel from the author, publishing in April 2023. Her non-fiction debut, This Little Art, was published by Fitzcarraldo Editions in 2017 and she received a Windham Campbell Prize in 2021.

The Long Form follows Helen and her baby, Rose, exploring friendship and care-taking, and the power of novels. "It is first thing on a new morning," the synopsis reads. "They move, they rest, they communicate; Rose feeds. Thoughts and associations travel far beyond the remit of the front room in their rented flat, which they pace, and which, alive with them, continually becomes new. 

"Their delicate balance is interrupted by the delivery of A History of Tom Jones by Henry Fielding – a novel which describes itself, semi-seriously, as inventing the novel form for the very first time. As the morning progresses, Helen starts reading it. Indirectly, and each in their own distinct ways, Helen and Rose start thinking about it: its claims to newness, its length, its essayistic digressions, its invitation to imagine old and new forms of life, writing, and experience."

It continues: "At once acrobatic and deeply attentive, The Long Form insists on the creativity inherent in everyday life, showing how the acts of social composition (living arrangements) are continuous with the acts of artistic composition (page arrangements).

"It is a novel of profound contrasts and productive co-dependencies, in which the small details of a day speak to the largest questions of form, responsibility, continuation and love."

Briggs is the translator of two volumes of Roland Barthes’ lecture and seminar notes at the Collège de France: The Preparation of the Novel and How to Live Together, both published by Columbia University Press. She teaches at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam.

She said: "I am so happy to be publishing this book with Fitzcarraldo Editions, and continuing our work together. Their deep understanding and support of my work has been life-changing for me, and I feel honoured to be a part of their extraordinary list."

Testard added: "Kate Briggs is an extraordinary writer, a brilliant stylist whose work pushes at the boundaries of form and genre. We are all very excited to be publishing her debut novel after publishing This Little Art, which is already a cult book. The Long Form confirms that Kate Briggs is a major author, carving out a unique path in contemporary literature."