Transworld scoops Telegraph's Cohen on female friendship

Transworld has scooped a book on female friendship by Telegraph columnist Claire Cohen at auction.

The publisher acquired UK and commonwealth rights from Jim Gill at United Agents for BFF? The Truth About Female Friendship. It will be published by Bantam Press in hardback in May 2022.

The book will celebrate and interrogate what modern friendship means, how it can survive, why we need it and what we can do to get the most from it, and features interviews with women on what friendship means to them. Cohen argues that, unlike romantic relationships, friendship is much harder to pin down and quantify, and shows how often our friendships are taken for granted. The publisher said: "An antidote to the idea that every woman must belong to a perfect girl gang, this book is a reassuring guide to help women answer for themselves, 'Have we lost it? Are we still friends? Is there too much to catch up on?'"

Helena Gonda, commissioning editor at Transworld, said: "I’m thrilled to be working with Claire to publish this fascinating and important book. Her curiosity and warmth leap off the page and I know BFF? will be an invaluable guide for so many women struggling to re-navigate their friendships as we start to emerge from lockdown. I couldn’t be more pleased to welcome her to Transworld."

Cohen added: "We all know how vital friendship is to our lives and yet we still tend not to value it as highly as romantic relationships. By telling my own, often mortifying friendship stories, as well as those of other women, I hope to change that and help us appreciate our friendships more, something both my brilliant agent Jim and editor Helena got immediately. I'm thrilled to be working with Transworld on this book and can't wait for it to be out in the world, and for readers to find themselves in its pages."