Rising Star Ahmed signs rising star Zhang's Gold Rush-set tale

Virago has pre-empted a début based on the US Gold Rush by Iowa Writers’ Workshop fellow C Pam Zhang.

Senior commissioning editor Ailah Ahmed secured UK and Commonwealth rights to How Much of These Hills is Gold from Peter Straus at Rogers, Coleridge & White, on behalf of Bill Clegg at The Clegg Agency.

Virago will publish the novel, which follows Chinese-American siblings Lucy and Sam, in 2019.

Zhang, who was born in Beijing and raised in the US, has written “a fresh narrative about American immigration”, said Ahmed, who was was “left stunned by this book”.