William Collins wins five-way fight for Marçal's feminist economic exposé

William Collins has won a five-way auction for a feminist exposé of the economy by journalist Katrine Marçal.

Grace Pengelly, commissioning editor, won UK and Commonwealth rights to Mother of Invention: How Good Ideas Get Ignored in an Economy Built for Men, from Tracy Bohan at the Wylie Agency. Publication is set for summer 2021.

In Mother of Invention, the Swedish author argues that our economy is designed to exclude the ideas and needs of women at every level. The publisher said: “Marçal unearths the gendered assumptions that have stifled innovation and investigates the extent to which sexist ideas still dominate the world of business. At a time when less than 3% of venture capital funding goes to women, Mother of Invention documents what we have already lost, and what we stand to gain, by taking the ideas of women seriously.”

Marçal, who lives in the UK, is a correspondent for Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter and has interviewed many of the world’s top economists and public thinkers including Yanis Varoufakis and Michelle Obama. Her first book, Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner? (Granta), was published in 20 languages. It was nominated for the August Prize and won the Lagercrantzen Award.

She said: “When we exclude women from the history of technology the story that remains is inevitably tied to a will to ‘crush’, ‘dominate’ and ‘win’ at the expense of others. These ideas still shape our economy. Now our very survival on this planet depends on bringing these aspects of our humanity back and putting them front and centre in a new business paradigm. That’s what Mother of Invention is all about.”

Pengelly added: “We all know about the boys' club, how they control and shape our global economy – but Katrine argues that we have underestimated how much this situation is depriving us of the innovations that we urgently need. Katrine’s blistering critique sets the record straight and shows how — in a time of crisis — the ingenuity and intelligence of women is the very thing that can save us. I’m thrilled that William Collins will be publishing Katrine’s razor-sharp book.”