Picador wins 10-way auction for O'Connor's 'extraordinary' debut as rights snapped up around globe

Picador’s recently appointed publisher Mary Mount has triumphed in a 10-way auction for the “extraordinary” debut novel Whale Fall by Elizabeth O’Connor, with rights being snapped up around the globe.

In her first acquisition for Picador, Mount signed UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada and including e-book and audio, from Matthew Marland at RCW for publication in 2024. Rights have already been acquired in Germany, with further auctions in France, Netherlands and Turkey, plus a pre-empt in Italy. Auctions are ongoing in other territories.

The synopsis states: “Set in 1938 on the shores of a small island off the coast of Wales, a young woman, Manod, is left to look after her sister and father, while haunted by memories of her dead mother. As she imagines another life away from this wild and bitter landscape, two anthropologists from the mainland arrive to study her community and their vanishing way of life. As the young woman forms an intense and uneasy relationship with the newcomers, she begins to believe that her work for them may take her to a completely different future. But, as the prospect of war threatens to upend all their lives, Manod finds herself at the centre of a dangerous circle and a new understanding of the modern world that had felt so out of reach.”

O’Connor lives in Birmingham and her short stories have appeared in the White Review and Granta. She was the winner of the White Review Short Story Prize in 2020. 

Mount said: “Whale Fall is a quite extraordinary novel — of incredibly intensity, immense control, and devastating beauty. It is that rare combination of a thrilling read and a novel of profound resonance. The young woman at the heart of the novel is one of the most moving heroines I have come across in recent fiction.”

O’Connor said: “I’m absolutely thrilled that Whale Fall has found a home at Picador, and couldn’t be happier to have Mary Mount as my editor. I’m so excited to share this book with readers around the world.”