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Wildfire lands Genberg’s The Details amid global rights frenzy
Wildfire will publish Ia Genberg’s The Details [Detaljerna], the prizewinning Swedish author’s first book to be translated into English.
Editorial director Ella Gordon acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Senka Hasanovic at Salomonsson Agency following the Swedish publication that saw Genberg top the bestseller list for several consecutive weeks. North American rights were also sold to Tara Parsons, v.p. and deputy publisher at HarperVia. Rights have since been sold in 29 international territories.
The Details will be published in hardback, export trade paperback, e-book and audiobook on 8th August 2023. It will be translated into English by Kira Josefsson, a writer, editor and translator based in New York.
The book won the August Prize for Best Fiction and the Aftonbladet Literary Prize in Sweden and has been shortlisted for several other awards.
Wildfire said of The Details: “Genberg’s intimate and powerful novel follows an unnamed female narrator who, bedridden and in the throes of a fever, casts her mind back to four people over the course of her life who are no longer present, but who have had a profound impact in shaping who she is as a person. Genberg explores the fragments of memory and experience that make up a life in exhilarating, provocative prose, revealing an intimate and powerful celebration of what it means to be human.”
The book is aimed at fans of Rachel Cusk, Lucia Berlin and Annie Ernaux.
Gordon said: “Rarely does a book this small pack such emotional heft. I read it over the course of a day in my hotel room at the end of LBF [London Book Fair] and was glued to it. It holds such universal, timeless truths about the human experience and I truly believe it is a novel for everyone.
"Ia Genberg is an extraordinary talent, and I’m grateful to Kira Josefsson for rendering her prose so beautifully for an English readership.”
Josefsson said: “I knew as soon as I started reading Ia’s book that Detaljerna was something special, lit through with a rare combination of humour and generosity that makes what is in some ways a pretty small, humble book grow into a novel of great beauty and grace. Translating it has been a true joy.”
Genberg began working as a journalist and then became a published author in Sweden in 2012. The Details will be her first book published in English.
