Two new Evie Wyld novels to Jonathan Cape

Jonathan Cape has acquired two new novels from British-Australian novelist and major literary prize-winner Evie Wyld.

Michal Shavit, publishing director at Jonathan Cape, jointly acquired UK & Commonwealth rights with Nikki Christer at Penguin Random House Australia from Laetitia Rutherford at Watson, Little.

Wyld is the author of two novels, After the Fire, a Still Small Voice (Vintage), which was shortlisted for shortlisted for the Orange Prize for New Writers, the Commonwealth Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin literary award, and All the Birds, Singing (Vintage), which won Australia's most prestigious literary prize, the Miles Franklin Literary Award, was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Prize and is under option with Capa Pictures. She is also the author of a graphic novel illustrated by Joe Sumner, Everything is Teeth (Jonathan Cape).

Evie Wyld’s third novel, The Bass Rock, will explore women's experiences over time, by telling the stories of three "distinct" women in three different times that will intersect and dramatise "why something ‘only being in your head’ is the most terrifying thing of all".

The novel's characters include a woman from North Berwick in 1590, who stands accused of being a witch and is "frightened by her own mind"; a woman moves to a large house in a "haunted landscape" in North Berwick to take care of her new husband's two sons, both traumatised by the recent death of their mother; and a 21st century novelist travelling in the south of France to research a ghost story her parents told her when she was a child. It will be her first novel to be set in England and Europe.

Shavit said: “We are incredibly excited to have signed up Evie’s next two novels at Jonathan Cape. Evie is one of the outstanding writers of her generation and Bass Rock is going to be a major event in 2018.”

Wyld is being published into 16 languages, by Pantheon in the USA and jointly with Penguin Random House Australia.