William Collins scoops new book by Islands of Abandonment author Flyn

William Collins has scooped a new book on our relationship to the natural world by Islands of Abandonment (William Collins) author Cal Flyn.

In a major deal, publishing director Arabella Pike bought British Commonwealth rights in Flyn’s The Savage Landscape from Sophie Lambert at C&W Literary Agency. US rights have been bought by Emily Wunderlich at Viking US.

The book is slated for publication in 2025, and like Flyn’s previous book, it will examine "what nature gets up to in the absence of humans". The synopsis says: "In 10 chapters, each loosely structured around a visit to some of the world’s wildest and most invigorating landscapes, the book asks provocative questions about the nature of wilderness and how wild places might best be appreciated or preserved.

"These locations have been chosen for their physical beauty, their perceived isolation, and the moral or emotional complexity of the human stories that can be found there. In this search for wilderness, we will meet ascetics in search of theophany in the desert; lonely shepherds seeing off wolves under the stars; missionaries preaching from shacks deep in the jungle; wise lamas meditating under lofty mountain peaks."

Pike said: "Publishing Cal has been one of the great privileges of my career to date. Her immense gifts as a writer were on full display in Islands – a book that examines both the ecology and the psychology of abandoned places. With this new book, she’ll take us into the wild – deep into dark forests, to the top of mountains and into the heart of deserts. It is a book that will address our deep yearnings to be awed and inspired by landscapes that remain beyond our reach."

Flyn said: "I am delighted that William Collins will publish my third book. Arabella and her team have been a source of endless support, strength and wisdom during my career so far, and I am so proud to be on their roster. The Savage Landscape is a research and travel-intensive project, and I move into the next phase of its writing secure in the knowledge that I have them at my back.

"This is a book that is already changing my understanding of our place in the world, how we relate to the other residents of this planet—human and animal."

Author and journalist Flyn’s first book, Thicker Than Water (William Collins), about frontier violence in colonial Australia, was a Times book of the year. Her second book, Islands of Abandonment, was a Sunday Times bestseller and saw her declared the 2021 Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. It was also a BBC Radio 4 book of the week and a Waterstones book of the month, while both the Times and the Sunday Times declared it their science and environment book of the year.

Islands of Abandonment won the John Burroughs Medal for natural history writing in the US and was shortlisted for numerous literary awards including the Baillie Gifford Prize for non-fiction, the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize, the Wainwright Prize for writing on global conservation, the British Academy Book Prize, and Italy’s Premio Tiziano Terzani. That book is currently in the process of being translated into 14 languages.