Powers returns to William Heinemann to publish The Overstory

American novelist Richard Powers is publishing a new novel, The Overstory, with William Heinemann.

Powers returns to William Heinemann and Vintage after last publishing his 2014 Man Booker longlisted book, Orfeo, with Atlantic.

Publisher Jason Arthur acquired UK and Commonwealth rights in the book from Peter Straus at Rogers, Coleridge & White on behalf of Melanie Jackson of the Melanie Jackson Agency, LLC.

The Overstory is about nine strangers who in different ways are "summoned by trees", brought together in a last stand to save the continent’s few remaining acres of virgin forest. Set in "a world alongside our own", it comprises interlocking fable, from antebellum New York to the late 20th-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest. According to William Heinemann, it is "the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world, and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe".

Arthur said: "Richard Powers is, to my mind, one of the greatest living American novelists. He is certainly one of the most formidable, rewarding authors I have ever read. This new novel is endlessly fascinating, extraordinary and utterly unforgettable. I’m delighted to welcome him back to William Heinemann and Vintage, and very much look forward to bringing this wonderful new novel to the wide UK audience Richard so richly deserves."

The Overstory will be published by William Heinemann in spring 2018 and in paperback by Vintage in 2019.