Footnote Press wins Acts of Resistance, Massie-Blomfield's exploration of art as political activism

Footnote Press has won Acts of Resistance, an exploration of art as political activism by Amber Massie-Blomfield.

Editorial director Fritha Saunders acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Anna Power at Johnson & Alcock for publication in July 2023. US rights have been sold to W W Norton.

The synopsis says: "In Acts of Resistance, Amber Massie-Blomfield will write about the artists who have treated the protest site as their canvas and contributed to movements that have transformed history – from the Paris Commune of 1871 to the four-year Siege of Sarajevo, from the musicians in Auschwitz to ACT UP’s 1989 invasion of the New York Stock Exchange, and from the Niger Delta to indigenous communities in Bolivia."

It goes on to add: "Combining cultural criticism, history and memoir, Acts of Resistance will be an urgent reminder that art can make a human life more bearable, and can be a means of building the things that a person needs to survive the bleakest circumstances. This book is a testament to that idea, and to the people who have risked their lives to prove it is so."

Saunders commented: "I’ve always been interested in what makes protest impactful and so I’m thrilled to be publishing Amber’s important new book at Footnote. We will read about the most imaginative, off-beat, subversive and powerful uses of art as a means of protest, both historically and in the present day. And it feels like these inspiring and empowering stories are needed now more than ever." 

Massie-Blomfield is executive director of Complicité theatre company, where she is currently leading the first ever stage adaptation of Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk’s Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (Fitzcarraldo Editions). Previously, she was executive director of Camden People’s Theatre.

The author’s first book, Twenty Theatres to See Before You Die (Penned in the Margins), was shortlisted for the Theatre Book Prize and recipient of the Society of Authors’ Michael Meyer Award, as well as Gladstone Library’s Political Writer-in-Residence Award. She said: "Acts of Resistance is my personal inquiry into the remarkable acts of artistic expression that have shifted history on its axis, and a vindication of creativity as a vital force in the fight for a better future. I couldn’t have hoped for a publisher better aligned to the political commitments of the book.

"Footnote is convinced, as I am, that a more socially and ecologically just world is not only possible, but must have creative expression and artistic acts at the heart of its realisation. It’s a joy to be working with Fritha Saunders to make this project a reality, and I’m immensely grateful to my agent Anna Power at Johnson & Alcock for cultivating this beautiful partnership."