You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
Pan Macmillan has landed An Ocean Apart, a debut novel about the Windrush generation from Sarah Lee.
Publishing director for fiction Gillian Green acquired world rights from Kate Burke at Blake Friedmann. The novel will be published in August 2022.
“Gillian’s vision and passion for this novel has been evident from the start and I’m delighted to be working with Sarah and the Pan team on this historical gem,” Burke commented.
An Ocean Apart follows the lives of three young Caribbean women who come to England in the 1960s and train to be nurses in the early beginnings of the NHS. It is in part inspired by Lee’s mother who became a nurse.
Green said: “Sarah Lee’s debut, as well as being a wonderful story, is a complete love letter to the NHS and the Windrush generation of nurses who came from the Caribbean to work for it. We’re so proud to be publishing this lovely slice of important historical fiction at Pan.”
Lee added: “I felt compelled to tell this story as many of the experiences of the characters in An Ocean Apart resemble those of the proud, strong, caring women I grew up around, including my own mother. These pioneering young people left their homes, families and all that they knew to come to the ‘Mother Country’ and help lay the foundations of the NHS, with many giving over their entire working lives to the service. It is a privilege to be able to bring these little-known stories to light.”