John Murray bags new novel by poet and novelist Luke Kennard

John Murray has acquired a new novel by the poet and novelist Luke Kennard.

Publishing director Nicholas Pearson bought British and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, to Black Bag from Georgia Garrett at Rogers Coleridge and White, with the novel set to be published in spring 2026.

The synopsis states: "In Luke Kennard’s audacious new novel, a penniless and out-of-work actor picks up a job working for Dr Blend, a university professor who is conducting a psychological experiment. How will Dr Blend’s students react to someone zipped into on oversized bag, sitting at the back of the lecture hall over a series of autumn term lectures? The role, eagerly accepted, soon has unexpected consequences […] A warped campus novel, an investigation into the crisis of masculinity and an off-kilter love story, Black Bag is a firework of a novel: blazingly funny and profoundly humane."

Pearson said: "There is no novel like Black Bag – it is a total one-off. The novels that matter to me explore our interior lives. Luke Kennard has taken this to an extreme to produce something extremely funny and surreal that shines a light on how men both think of themselves and how they are perceived."

Kennard added: "I feel like this is the novel I’ve been trying to write for the last 20 years and I’m absolutely elated that it has found a home with John Murray. It’s a dream to be working with Nicholas Pearson, an awe-inspiring editor whose work I’ve admired for just as long."