Little, Brown acquires award-winning Rosewater trilogy

Little, Brown imprint Orbit has acquired the Rosewater trilogy from British author Tade Thompson.

Rosewater was announced this morning as the winner for Best Novel at the inaugural Nommo awards, the first award of its kind for African speculative fiction or science fiction.

Prizes were awarded today as part of the Ake Arts and Book Festival in Nigeria, and also included Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti (Tor) winning the Best Novella and a tie between Lesley Nneka Arimah and Tendai Huchu for Best Short Story. The awards have been set up by the African Speculative Fiction Society and were funded by entrepreneur Tom Ilube.

While Rosewater was originally published last year by indie press Apex, agent Alexander Cochran from C+W sold world rights in this and two more novels in the trilogy to senior commissioning editor Jenni Hill at Orbit last month.

The trilogy will chronicle the effects and aftereffects of a biological catastrophe first on an individual, then on a community and finally the world.

Thompson said: “I’m delighted to work with Orbit. To join the ranks of sci-fi greats like Brin, Banks, Moon, Leckie, Robinson and Elliott among others is an honour for me.”

Hill added: “Tade had us hooked from the very first page, and the Orbit teams in both London and New York are thrilled to publish this fantastic novel! I just can’t wait to read book two. ”