Scribe to publish 'detailed portrait' of Germaine Greer

Scribe is publishing a biography of Germaine Greer, who recently courted controversy internationally for her views on sexual assault ahead of her new book On Rape (Bloomsbury).

Scribe has billed Germaine by Elizabeth Kleinhenz as the first biography of Greer for nearly 20 years. According to the independent publisher, it traces Greer’s personal and political history and draws on "unprecedented access" to her personal archives, which were opened at Melbourne University in 2016. As well as delving into Greer's files, Kleinhenz has also researched the book by speaking to people who have known Greer from her school days. 

The result, according to Scribe, is "a rich, detailed portrait of a woman both legendary and notorious". Coverage spans Greer’s "troubled" early life in 1940s Melbourne, her career, her relationships with men and women, her travels, and her home life, and examines the evolution of her work and ideas from The Female Eunuch to the #MeToo movement.

UK and North American rights were acquired by Scribe UK’s Sarah Braybrooke, who said: "Even today, decades after she first shot to fame, Greer’s impact is everywhere – from the recent BBC documentary about her to the Wooster Group play The Town Hall Affair, staged at the Barbican last month. But despite her frequent, provocative media appearances and vast body of work, the woman herself defies definition. In Germaine, Kleinhenz has succeeded in penning a biography which is fascinating in its subject matter but also balanced and thoughtful in the writing."

Rights were acquired from Rachel Clements at Abner Stein, acting on behalf of the Drummond Agency. Penguin Random House Australia will publish the book on 29th October and Germaine will be published by Scribe in the UK on the same date. Its publication in North America will follow in April 2019.

Greer's new book On Rape, which argues "the only result of desperate attempts to apportion blame and enact chastisement has been an erosion of the civil rights of the accused", meanwhile, publishes with Melbourne University Publishing in Australia on 1st September and publishes with Bloomsbury in the UK and Ireland on 6th September.

Bloomsbury won UK and Irish rights at auction to the controversial essay after MUP received "a number" of competing offers. "Significant interest worldwide" has further been reported by MUP, with the manuscript currently on submission in the US and a number of European territories.