What Belongs to You

Fantastic pre-publication work by Picador and original storytelling helped take Garth Greenwell’s What Belongs to You from a small, poetic novel by an unknown writer to a literary success.

Picador handled the novel’s journey to publication deftly, moving the publication date a number of times due to intensive editing by the author and to take advantage of the success of the US release.

The judges were impressed with Picador’s decision to position Greenwell as an ambassador for his book and as an authority on the many sensitive issues explored in the novel, which follows an American man teaching English to students in Bulgaria who becomes fascinated by a troubled young hustler, Mitko, whose casual approach to his own life is both pitiful and heartbreaking.

Recognising Greenwell’s strengths, Picador brought him to the UK, enabling it to aim for mainstream, high-profile media slots as well as targeting gay media and bookshops. Sales of the book, mostly through Waterstones, Amazon and independent bookshops, showed there is an appetite for gay literature, a genre that has been neglected for a number of years, said the judges.

What Belongs to You was the second highest-selling American hardback literary début of 2016 through Nielsen BookScan.

Matt Bates, fiction buyer at W H Smith Travel, said: “Picador really connected both target and wider readership with its publishing of What Belongs to You. There was something instinctive about the way that this novel found its way into readers’ hands—a sensitive, refined and understated approach that reflected the book itself and enabled the writing to bridge to a thirsty, appreciative audience.”