Picador pre-empts Emil Sands' 'startling' memoir about disability and beauty ideals

Picador has pre-empted I Am Not Achilles by artist and debut author Emil Sands, dubbed “a lyrical coming-of-age memoir about physical disability and ideals of beauty”. 

Publishing director George Morley and editorial director Andrea Henry acquired UK and Commonwealth and audio rights from Karolina Sutton at CAA, for publication in hardback in spring 2026, as part of a pre-emptive deal. Chris Richards, executive editor at Scribner, will publish in the US. 

Picador said: “Emil Sands has a form of cerebral palsy that affects half of his body, an accident at birth damaging the cerebral motor cortex. Throughout his childhood, he felt ashamed of his disability and worked hard to conceal it. Surgery in his teenage years, followed by a grueling regime of daily workouts allowed Emil to pass for ‘normal’. Though what he consistently heard from others was ‘normal, considering’. 

“His disability pushed him hard, and closed doors redirected his attention to open ones. He couldn’t play football, but took up painting. He excelled academically. His body became toned and muscular. Then an encounter with a Greek sculpture, the Doryforos, compelled him to think anew about bodily perfection. The classical statue was lauded as perfection, but something excited Sands more.

“The stone spear bearer made over 2,000 years ago bore all his weight on his right leg. The muscles around his right knee were focused and tense and tangled in a composition Emil recognised from his own stance, which had been carefully crafted to mask his disability. A long-lasting connection with the art of the ancient world was born.” 

Sands’ personal essay, "Struck On One Side", was published in February 2023 when he was 24, alongside his paintings in the Atlantic, a piece which forms the basis of his I Am Not Achilles. The book offers “a lyrical coming-of-age memoir about physical disability and ideals of beauty”, Picador said. 

Henry said: “This is a startling memoir about physical difference in a world that’s obsessed with beauty and so-called normality. Emil juxtaposes the differences of his own body with depictions of the male form in classical art and takes the reader on an erudite and lyrical journey through self-loathing and shame, towards acceptance. It’s a captivating read, which demands that you think again about beauty standards and, crucially, the masking of our real selves in which we’re all complicit to some degree.” 

Sands said: “This book requires me to dig deep and confront memories I have so far preferred to bury. I knew from the off that Andrea and George would help me do this with care, compassion and skill. In my 2023, article for the Atlantic, I begin to think about the themes which this book will cover – beauty, perfection, normality. I am ready to plunge into this world. This story is more than just my own. I know I am not the only man who thinks hard about what their body should do and could do.” 

An artist and writer from London, Sands is currently living in New York. He studied Fine Art Painting at Central Saint Martins before getting a BA in Classics at Christ’s College, Cambridge. He studied Classics and Ancient Art at MPhil level at Christ’s, with a thesis entitled "The Limits of Masculinity in Second Century AD Imperial Portraiture". As the former Henry Fellow at Yale University, he is now affiliated with both the Yale School of Writing and Yale School of Art.