Granta wins history of deified men after five-way auction

Granta Books has won a five-way auction for Accidental Gods, a history of men deified against their will – from Haile Selassie to Prince Philip, to Captain Cook, Columbus and the conquest of the New World.

Commissioning editor Anne Meadows acquired UK and Commonwealth rights (excluding Canada and including ANZ) to the title by Anna Della Subin from Natasha Fairweather at Rogers, Coleridge and White, on behalf of Alex Jacobs at The Cheney Agency.

Meadows said she was "thrilled" to have signed up Subin, a writer whose "erudition and intellect have made converts" of the team at Granta.

"Accidental Gods is more than just a history of fascinating and curious apotheoses, it is an extraordinary account of religion and devotion that will make you reconsider everything you thought you knew about faith and colonialism, race and power", said Meadows. "Subin’s work recalls Rebecca Solnit in its intellectual depth and its deft, fleet-footed prose, but its style is also absolutely and entirely her own. She is a future star and we are so delighted to be publishing her on the Granta list.”

Subin graduated from Harvard Divinity School, with a master’s degree in theology. She has worked as an editor for Bidoun and contributed to the London Review of Books, New York Times, The New Yorker online, Harper’s, and The White Review. She lives in Oxford.

US rights were acquired by Riva Hocherman at Metropolitan.

Granta Books will publish in November 2019.