Portobello wins nine-way auction for bias book

Portobello Books has acquired The End of Bias, a "ground-breaking" book by American journalist Jessica Nordell following a "heated" nine-way auction.

Commissioning editor Anne Meadows acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Natasha Fairweather at Rogers, Coleridge and White, who negotiated the deal on behalf of Adam Eaglin at The Cheney Agency. In the US, rights were pre-empted by Riva Hocherman at Metropolitan in a "major" deal.

Meadows said: "Unconscious bias affects everything in our society, from the gender pay gap to racially motivated policing, from how children are treated in schools to how defendants are treated in court. In the wake of the latest feminist and anti-racist movements, many of us have been looking round wondering, what can we do to create real change? The answer is The End of Bias: a toolkit for a very personal and personable sort of revolution, one which could change the world."

Nordell has spent the last decade writing about the devastating effects of unconscious bias and the scientists, psychologists and entrepreneurs seeking to overcome it. She said: "Ending bias is essential to the continuing functioning of our companies and our society. It's also a really fascinating story. I myself have been transformed by the reporting and writing-- I hope readers will be, too."

Portobello Books will publish The End of Bias in hardback and e-book in 2019.