Taylor moves to Cape in eight-way auction for 'most ambitious work to date'

Booker Prize-shortlisted author Brandon Taylor has moved to Jonathan Cape from Daunt Books, which published Real Life and Filthy Animals, with his new novel The Late Americans.

Željka Marošević, editorial director at Jonathan Cape, acquired British Commonwealth rights excluding Canada from Hal Fessenden at Riverhead. The Late Americans will be published in June 2023.

The publisher describes The Late Americans as “a deeply involving new novel of young men and women at a crossroads”.

To mark his move to Cape, Brandon Taylor visits the UK next week to launch The Late Americans to booksellers, media and influencers at Vintage’s Fiction 2023 showcase.

Taylor will give his first UK talk and reading from the book at the event, and early proofs will be available. He said: “I’m honoured and thrilled to be making a home at Jonathan Cape, who has published many of the novels that have meant the most to me.

“I’m pinching myself that I get to reunite with Željka once again and get to work with the wonderful and brilliant Jonathan Cape team!”

Marošević commented: “Brandon has swiftly established himself as one of the finest American writers at work today and a new book from him is an event.

“He is one of the best chroniclers of intimacy and The Late Americans is his most ambitious and satisfying work to date, a group novel about art and precarity, friendship and chosen family. It’s an honour to welcome him to Cape and Vintage, where he already has so many fans.”

Taylor’s debut novel Real Life was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2020 and his short story collection Filthy Animals was shortlisted for this year’s Dylan Thomas Prize.