Viking strikes two-book deal with Nina Stibbe

Viking has struck a two-book deal with Nina Stibbe, which will see the author tackle “the machinations of the contemporary world”.

Publisher Mary Mount acquired world English language rights to the books from Jo Unwin at JULA. The first of the two novels will be published in 2021.

The as-yet-untitled novels will see Stibbe move away from Lizzie Vogel, the protagonist of her first three novels, and turn her attention to the present day.

Mount said: “Being Nina Stibbe’s publisher is one of the greatest pleasures of my working life. As well as being one of the funniest writers alive she is an extraordinary prose stylist and a great observer of human frailty. I cannot wait to see how she deals with the machinations of the contemporary world and I could not be more thrilled at the prospect of two new novels from this comic genius.”

Stibbe added: “I am absolutely thrilled that after five books together I’m going to be working with the Viking team again. And I am particularly delighted that I get to stay with my legendary editor, Mary Mount, who discovered me by accident in 2013 and hasn’t been able to shake me off since.”

The author's latest novel Reasons to Be Cheerful won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction earlier this year. The book will be published in paperback by Penguin in January.

Over the last six years Stibbe has published five books with the Penguin imprint. She has sold 125,191 books for £1.03m, through Nielsen, with her debut novel Love, Nina, her bestselling with 70,418 copies sold across all editions. Love, Nina was made into a BBC TV series starring Helena Bonham Carter, with a screenplay by Nick Hornby.