Picador snares 'incendiary' Almontaser poetry debut

Picador has snared The Wild Fox of Yemen, an “incendiary” debut poetry collection from award-winner Threa Almontaser.

Poetry editor Don Paterson acquired UK, Ireland, non-exclusive Europe and Commonwealth rights from Katie Dublinski at Graywolf, for publication on 8th July 2021 in paperback.

The collection asks how mistranslation can be a form of self-knowledge and survival. The publisher explained: “It’s a love letter to the country and people of Yemen, a portrait of young Muslim womanhood in New York after 9/11, and an extraordinarily composed examination of what it means to carry in the body the echoes of what came before. Almontaser sneaks artefacts to and from worlds, repurposing language and adapting to the space between cultures. The Wild Fox of Yemen fearlessly rides the tension between carnality and tenderness in the unruly human spirit.”

The Wild Fox of Yemen was selected by Harryette Mullen for the 2020 Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets. Almontaser is the recipient of awards from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Italy, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fulbright programme, and elsewhere.

She said: “The poetess writes to record, to hold accountability. I write to manifest Yemen in the minds of those who read my work, as a perpetual ghost that haunts the page. Sherwin Bitsui says poetry exists in the world already—we as poets simply call it forth. So I’m grateful to be a part of the Picador family, who strive to spread that voice far and wide. And very excited to connect in conversations happening among our Yemeni British communities.”

Paterson said: “The Yemeni American poet Threa Almontaser’s debut is not just a timely and ferociously intelligent book; it’s also one of the most nuanced accounts of identity in recent years, in its sheer refusal to simplify, its acknowledgement that we all carry 'the many in the one', and that our selves needn’t all get along, especially when it comes to the business of being faithful to oneself without abandoning those we love. We’re delighted to introduce this bold, original and linguistically adventurous new voice to European readers.”