Prototype to publish first UK editions of Kate Zambreno's Book of Mutter and Appendix Project

Independent publisher Prototype is to publish the first UK editions of Kate Zambreno’s Book of Mutter and Appendix Project. 

Publisher Jess Chandler acquired UK and Commonwealth rights directly from the author with both titles due to be published simultaneously in spring 2025. 

Originally published by Semiotext(e) in the US in 2017 and 2019 respectively, the Book of Mutter and Appendix Project are two interconnected works which explore the death of Zambreno’s mother through a variety of textual forms. The Book of Mutter is a "tender and disquieting meditation of the ability of writing, photography and memory to embrace shadows… of grief". The Appendix Project is a collection of 11 talks and essays inspired by the lectures of Roland Barthes, Anne Carson and Jorge Luis Borges and contain "some of Zambreno’s most original and dazzling thinking and writing". 

Zambreno said: "It is such an honour to be published by Jess Chandler and Prototype, a press I admire for its experimental rigour and dedication to the book as an object. It is wonderful to be published on the same press as other writers I love, from Bhanu Kapil and Danielle Dutton, to Derek Jarman, who I write to in The Light Room. It is also a pleasure and joy to have Book of Mutter and Appendix Project, my twin projects, published simultaneously."

Chandler added: "The varied, hybrid style of Kate’s writing, combined with their intellectual curiosity and rigour and deep engagement with visual art, could not be more resonant with my interests as an editor, and it is a huge privilege to welcome Kate to Prototype."