Footnote Press signs exploration of queer single motherhood by Hannah Silva

Writer and performer Hannah Silva’s “genre-fluid memoir that questions what it is to write, to parent and to love”, entitled My Child, the Algorithm, has been signed by Footnote Press.

Candida Lacey, consulting editor, acquired world English language rights in print and e-book, excluding the US, Canada and the Philippines, from Laetitia Rutherford at Watson, Little for publication by Footnote in July 2023. 

Subtitled by the publisher as “an alternatively intelligent book of love”, My Child, the Algorithm is billed as “a living exploration of undoing and redoing love and motherhood, and specifically queer single motherhood, through conversations between the author, her toddler and an algorithm, as they chart an unusual journey into language and the articulation of love, self and authorship".

The synopsis continues: “Silva interrogates her life with the input of two unreliable narrators – an algorithm and a toddler. As she navigates friendship, dating and life as a single mum in London, the algorithm and toddler encourage flights of imagination and infinite mischief.

"Silva and the algorithm play with language like the toddler plays with Play-Doh, building shapes, moulding rainbows. Silva writes and rewrites herself and her child, who every night asks ‘tell me a story about me’. Both toddler and algorithm veer Silva’s narrative in unexpected directions – ‘no, this way mummy!’ – with a playful curiosity that injects humour and insight into the author’s life as she negotiates being one of two mothers and questions how she has lived and loved in the past.

“With the help of the algorithm, Silva deconstructs love, and reconstructs it too, through friendships and parenting. She questions our society, so built around the unit of the nuclear family, and a universal credit system that is impossible for any single parent to get out off – unless they move in with a partner.

“She finds alternative ways of thinking, loving, parenting and living in London today. In the process of unravelling everything she has been taught to want, and reimagining life alternatively, she discovers a new language for articulating love and queering motherhood.”

Lacey describes Silva’s writing as “fresh, bold and completely original”, adding that her “linguistic curiosity and playfulness is non-fiction at its finest".

She continues: “Hers is an innovative take on the genre of memoir, and one that chimes entirely with Footnote’s mission to challenge dominant narratives and retell the story. But more important than this is the sheer beauty of Hannah’s language and the bravery, integrity and insight of her storytelling. I am delighted to acquire such an essential, politically engaged and artistically radical book.”

Silva, whose record “Talk in a Bit” (Humankind Records) was included in the Wire’s Top 25 Albums of 2018 and whose play for BBC Radio 4 “An Artificially Intelligent Guide to Love” starred Fiona Shaw and was the starting point for My Child, the Algorithm, commented: “I feel very lucky to have found a home for this book at such an innovative and politically engaged press. I’m delighted by Candida’s enthusiasm for my questioning and exploration of ideas and form, and can’t wait to collaborate.”