You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
Scribner acquires new book from Booker Prize-winning Graham Swift
Scribner UK, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, has acquired the rights to the new book from 1996 Booker Prize-winning author Graham Swift. Simon & Schuster chief executive officer and publisher UK and international, Ian Chapman, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to Twelve Post-War Tales from Caradoc King at United Agents. Separately, North American rights were sold by King to Diana Miller at Knopf, French rights to Tiffany Gassouk at Gallimard, German rights to Lucy Harries at DTV, Dutch rights to Robbert Ammerlaan at Singel and Spanish rights to Jane Pilgrem at Anagrama.
The synopsis reads: "In the aftermath of the Second World War, Private Joseph Caan, a young Jewish soldier stationed in Germany, seeks the truth about lost family members; in the 1960s a father focuses on his daughter’s wedding even as the Cuban Missile Crisis brings the world to the brink of disaster; in 2001, while planes fly into the Twin Towers, a maid working for the US Embassy staff in London wonders if her birth on the day of the Kennedy assassination shaped her life; and at the height of a pandemic lockdown, Dr Cole, a retired specialist in respiratory diseases, returns to work and recalls a formative childhood encounter with illness and with much more."
Chapman said: "The publication of a new book by Graham Swift reaffirms for me why I work in publishing. He is quite simply a genius and in Twelve Post-War Tales his remarkable gifts are on full display. Across the 12 stories he encompasses many of the great events of post-war history while creating worlds and characters that are connected by the precision, compassion and deep intelligence of his pen. We are the proud publishers of Graham’s entire body of work and in this latest book he is once again at the very height of his literary powers."
Swift said: "I’m delighted to be bringing out another book with Scribner UK and, once more, a book of stories. The attempt to say much in a short space remains a constant spur. Post-war is open to many interpretations, but one might be that I was born in 1949, in the shadow of war, so I am myself a post-war creature. My 12 tales belong to the historical period I’ve lived through or been formed by. They deal with the stuff of history, but I hope they mainly deal with the stuff of life."
Simon & Schuster will publish Twelve Post-War Tales on the Scribner imprint on 8th May 2025, the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day. It will be published by Knopf in the United States also on 8th May 2025.
