'Mesmerising' novel West to Granta

Granta Books is to publish the debut novel West, and a second novel, by Welsh writer Carys Davies, winner of the Frank O'Connor Award 2015.

Bella Lacey, editorial director of Granta Books, won UK and Commonwealth rights to the titles in a three-way auction, from Anna Webber at United Agents, on behalf of Bill Clegg at the Clegg Agency.

Rights have also been sold at auction to Sarah Goldberg at Scribner (US) and pre-empted by Bompiani (Italy).

West is a "mesmerising" American frontier story about a widower who, in the wake of his wife’s death, leaves his daughter to travel into the unexplored plains of America in search of ancient giant creatures whose bones have recently been discovered in Kentucky.

Lacey said: "West is a radiant novel about the courage of conviction, the power of grief, the desire for knowledge and the pull of home. Carys Davies writes about her characters with a tenderness and magical thinking that has enthralled and moved me, and I’m thrilled to welcome her to the Granta list."

Davies won the Frank O’Connor Award 2015 for her story collection The Redemption of Galen Pike (Salt).

West is scheduled for publication in spring 2018.