Harvill Secker wins Taiwanese American author's debut novel

Harvill Secker has won a debut novel by K-Ming Chang in a "heated" five-way auction. 

Assistant editor Mikaela Pedlow acquired UK and Commonwealth rights (excluding Canada) to Bestiary as well as a short story collection, Resident Aliens, from Ben Fowler at Abner Stein, on behalf of Soumeya Bendimerad Roberts at HG Literary. 

Bestiary unravels the experiences of a grandmother, mother and daughter in a Taiwanese American family. The title will explore immigrant, family, queer and girlhood experiences.

Pedlow said: "We are so thrilled to be publishing K-Ming Chang at Harvill Secker. She is an electrifying and disarming new literary talent, writing in bold, visceral prose, and engaging with immense themes of youth and sexuality, especially queer and Asian identity, and of family history, myth and trauma, in a way that is unsentimental, darkly humorous and deeply affecting."

Harvill Secker will publish Bestiary on 4th February 2021 and Resident Aliens will follow in spring 2023. 

Bestiary will be published in the US by PRH imprint, One World, in Canada by Hamish Hamilton (PRH) and in Germany by Hanser Berlin.