Food writer Rachel Roddy moves to Fig Tree

Rachel Roddy, author of Four Quarters and Two Kitchens (Headline), has moved to Fig Tree to publish a new pasta book, The A-Z of Pasta.

Moving Roddy from Headline to Fig Tree, publishing director Juliet Annan bought world rights from Jon Elek at United Agents in a deal completed at auction.

Exploring everything about pasta from all 20 Italian regions, the Penguin Random House imprint will publish the new book in 2020.

Roddy said she was “thrilled” with her new publisher, adding of her new work: “It is going to be a book to read, with stories and essays, weaving history, culture and the everyday life of 50 shapes from the tip to the toe of Italy. But it will also be a truly practical book full of home cooking wisdom and 100 essential pasta and pasta sauce recipes.”

Annan said: “I have admired Rachel Roddy’s writing for a long time – she writes about food the way Nigel Slater or MFK Fisher does, with seriousness, huge love and a sense of amused curiosity for her subject that is infectious. Plus, her recipes are mouth-watering.”

Roddy writes the book after 14 years spent in Italy, having moved to Rome in 2005 where she began writing, mostly about food, on her blog Racheleats. Her first book, Five Quarters, was published in 2015 and won both the André Simon Food Book Award and the Guild of Food Writers First Book Award. Her second book, Two Kitchens, was published in 2017.