Fisher joins Corsair for Wivenhoe tale

Bookseller and publisher Samuel Fisher is to join Corsair for his second novel, Wivenhoe.

Corsair publisher James Gurbutt acquired UK & Commonwealth rights from Matthew Turner at RCW at auction. 

Wivenhoe is a "haunting novel" set in an alternate present, in an estuary village in Essex blanketed in snow, the day after a murder. The synopsis explains: "Taking place over 24 hours, and told in beautifully observed prose from the alternating perspectives of a terminally ill mother and her adult son, the novel imagines a world, not unlike our own, starting to slowly grapple with a natural disaster and the shifts in social mores and moral convictions that it precipitates."

Gurbutt said: "Sam writes with elegance and precision about a little-known corner of the country, creating a bleak but beautiful world that has stayed with me."

Fisher co-owns Burley Fisher Books in Hackney and is a director of Peninsula Press. His debut, The Chameleon (Salt, 2018), was longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize, shortlisted for the Collyer Bristow Prize and won a Betty Trask award in 2019. 

Commenting on the acquisition, Fisher said: "Wivenhoe is about family, complicity and disaster. I wanted to capture the moment a community realises that their expectations no longer match the conditions of their lived reality, and how they begin to come to terms with the fact that things have changed forever. It's also a novel about (and love letter to) the small corner of estuary Essex where I grew up. I am delighted to be joining Corsair and can't wait to work alongside James and the rest of the team to put Wivenhoe on the map!"

Corsair plan to publish in February 2022.