Hamish Hamilton snares 'extraordinary' work by Nabugodi in nine-way auction

Hamish Hamilton has snared an “extraordinary” study of the links between the poetry of freedom and practice of slavery in the Romantic period by Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award-winner Mathelinda Nabugodi in a nine-way auction.

Editor Hannah Chukwu acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to The Trembling Hand: Reflections of a Black Woman in the Romantic Archive from Tristan Kendrick at Rogers, Coleridge & White (RCW). US rights have been sold to John Freeman at Knopf, with its edition scheduled to coincide with the UK publication in spring 2024. 

In The Trembling Hand Nabugodi brings a decolonising, anti-racist perspective to the Romantic period and creates a revisionist profile of the period’s icons such as Lord Byron and William Wordsworth, by placing their work and their lives within the vitally important context of the Atlantic slave trade. The book encourages readers to re-inspect treasured artefacts from the period, the physical objects that line museums, as well as the literary ideas that form a large part of Britain’s English literature and history teaching, and reflect on how they have shaped our contemporary understanding of the UK. 

Nabugodi is a Leverhulme Trust early career fellow in the faculty of English at the University of Cambridge. She is one of the editors of the Longman edition of The Poems of Shelley and has published articles on his poetry as well as on the work of Walter Benjamin and questions of critical method. In September, she will take up a role as research associate in the literary and artistic archive at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge where she will contribute to a major exhibition on "The Legacies of Empire and Enslavement". 

Colm Tóibín, chair of the judges for the Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award previously praised The Trembling Hand for its “ambition and scope” as well as “the quality of the enquiring voice in the book". 

Chukwu said: “Uncovering the entangled relationship between the revelatory ideas produced by the Romantic poets and the violent oppression of the Atlantic slave trade is an essential project. Mathelinda’s work expertly demonstrates the contemporary repercussions of failing to examine this link. She is undoubtedly an expert in her subject matter, and it is this combined with her masterful ability to take readers into the archive with her that makes her work sing. Mathelinda is a powerful new voice in non-fiction, and all of us at Hamish Hamilton and Penguin are unbelievably proud and excited to bring her work to readers.” 

Nabugodi added: “On my first visit to the Hamish Hamilton offices, I found myself surrounded by the most amazing books, from Angela Davis to Zadie Smith, from Marlon James to Rafia Zakaria. I feel truly honoured and privileged that my work will be joining theirs on the Hamish Hamilton list. I could not be more excited about working with Hannah Chukwu, who has already done so much to champion and celebrate Black British history and creativity, and well understands the personal stakes of my project.  

“I am no less thrilled to work with John Freeman at Knopf, who shares my fascination with the poetic archive as a site of explosion and reassembly. I am also infinitely grateful to Tristan Kendrick at RCW for the kindness and enthusiasm with which he has steered my proposal through the UK and US auctions.”