Oneworld gets Peruvian debut

Oneworld has secured the debut novel of Anglo-Peruvian author Karina Lickorish Quinn, as a lead title for autumn 2021.

Juliet Mabey, publisher at Oneworld, acquired British and Commonwealth rights (excluding Canada), to Mancharisqa with exclusive Europe, serial and audio rights, from Seren Adams at United Agents. 

Mabey said: "I fell completely and utterly in love with this mesmerising, intense, multi-layered novel as soon as I started reading. The tone is wonderfully mystical and haunting, with echoes of other great Latin American writers without feeling remotely derivative. A stunningly original saga of an expansive, complex, troubled family in Peru, it is conveyed with a lightness of touch that belies its debut status, and I could not be more thrilled to feature Karina’s astonishing writing on my literary fiction list. There is really nothing else like it."

Mancharisqa, or The Dust Never Settles, is described as an "ambitious and formally inventive literary epic about haunting and counter histories, which adopts the traditional Andean concept of cyclical time reminiscent of One Hundred Years of Solitude and the novels of Bolaño, suffused with the surreal atmosphere of Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled."

Quinn was raised in the Midlands, Lima and New York. She is currently a teaching fellow in creative writing at the University of Leeds, and her short fiction has featured in British-Latinx writers anthology Un Nuevo Sol (Flipped Eye Publishing). 

She said: "I’m thrilled to be joining Oneworld and their list of remarkable, talented authors. I have long admired Juliet Mabey and Oneworld for their commitment to introducing readers to a range of cultures and voices from across the world. And thank you to my wonderful agent, Seren Adams, for believing in me and my work. Mancharisqa could not have found a better home."

The book will be published in hardback in autumn 2021.