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Hodder & Stoughton lands ‘powerfully visceral’ Joan of Arc retelling
Hodder & Stoughton has acquired Joan, a “propulsive and powerfully visceral feminist reimagining" of the life of Joan of Arc by Katherine J Chen, to be published on 5th July 2022.
Olivia Barber, commissioning editor, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, from Rachel Kind at Penguin Random House US.
Chen’s novel traces Joan of Arc’s “extraordinary rise from a violent childhood in a small village, to a unique position at the head of the French army – and the political intrigue, misogyny, and personal ambition that precipitate her downfall”. However, “rather than a pious girl driven by divine visions, in Chen’s hands Joan is transformed into a flesh-and-blood young woman: reckless, tender and steel-willed”.
Barber said: “I am thrilled to be publishing Katherine’s extraordinary, earthy, riveting retelling of Joan’s story. This is historical fiction at its best: tense and gripping, bristling with the textures and details of medieval France, and utterly convincing in its reimagining of a woman driven by her own ambitions, strength, determination – and vengefulness – to occupy a unique role in history.”
Chen is also the author of the novel Mary B (Vintage). Her work has been published in the New York Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, Literary Hub, and the historical fiction anthology Stories from Suffragette City (Holt).
She said: “Joan is one of the most elusive of elusive historical characters. In becoming an icon and a martyr, we imagine her forever in the fire, and we forget the young woman full of life, who rode war horses, who led an army, who frightened the encroaching English until they believed that so long as she was alive, they would not win again in battle. She embodies so much of what the world needs today: courage, kindness, hope. I wanted to change how we think of Joan of Arc and in doing so, how we think of women and the power that women wield.”
