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Granta has landed Aidan Cottrell-Boyce’s "hugely impressive" debut novel The End of Nightwork.
Associate publishing director Jason Arthur acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, from Matthew Marland at RCW in a three-way auction. The novel will be published in hardback and e-book in January 2023.
Cottrell-Boyce works as a post-doctoral research fellow at St Mary’s University in London and has published two academic books: Jewish Christians in Puritan England (Pickwick Publications) and Israelism in Modern Britain (Routledge). His work has also appeared in the White Review and Granta.
Cottrell-Boyce’s debut novel follows Pol who has a rare hormonal disorder which ages him dramatically, he is now in his thirties but has the outward appearance of a 23-year-old. With his condition seemingly dormant, Pol and his family live an ordinary life in Kilburn. However, Pol’s obsessive interest in the writings of 17th-Century Puritan prophet Bartholomew Playfere and his exposure to a radical new movement, echoing Playfere’s own prophecies, puts his family at risk and threatens the return of his condition.
Arthur commented: "The End of Nightwork is a hugely impressive debut, one that very directly and fearlessly engages with some of the most pressing issues facing the world today. It didn’t take me very long to fall for this compelling, hugely original and exhilarating novel, and I knew almost instantly that I was in the hands of a formidably talented and brilliant young writer."