Hot Key Books acquires 'groundbreaking' poetry collection from Putuma

Hot Key Books has acquired a “groundbreaking” poetry collection for young people from South African award-winning poet and playwright Koleka Putuma. 

Commissioning editor Ella Whiddett bought world rights to We Have Everything We Need to Start Again, from Manyano Media. It will publish on 20th June 2024, with an initial early May South African release. The book will be illustrated by Stockholm-based Adriana Bellet, whose previous work includes designing book covers for Dean Atta’s Black Flamingos and Christina Hammonds Reed’s The Black Kids.    

Hot Key said the collection “will empower and uplift readers, with poems to affirm and provide a positive outlook on a wide range of themes and coming-of-age experiences, including mental health, sexuality, gender, climate change and identity”. 

Cape Town resident Putuma’s 2017 début poetry collection for adults, Collective Amnesia⁠—published when the author was 24⁠—won a string of awards, has been translated into eight languages and is the bestselling poetry book in South Africa of the 21st century.  She said: “I’m thrilled to present this work, which I hope will act as a mirror and companion, holding the reader’s hand as they navigate transitions, questions and discoveries.” 

Whiddett added: “Every time I return to the writing, I’m struck anew by how sharp and thought-provoking Koleka’s verse is, how unique in its form, language and structure. Every line, every word, is a powerful statement of what she, and the next generation, stand for. It’s a call to protest, a call to love, a call to hope.”