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Penguin UK has acquired A Suitable Girl, the long-awaited sequel to Vikram Seth's 1993 international bestseller A Suitable Boy. Penguin imprint Hamish Hamilton bought world English language rights (excluding the US) from Vikram’s agent, David Godwin. It is the first worldwide acquisition by Hamish Hamilton UK, together with its newly formed imprints in Melbourne, Toronto and Delhi.
The book will be published simultaneously in the UK, India and Canada in autumn 2013, marking the 20th anniversary of Boy. Penguin also plans to add A Suitable Boy to its Modern Classics list, and republish it in paperback, taking over the rights from Orion. In the intervening years, Penguin will also publish volumes of Seth’s poems and essays.
Although Seth's Boy was set in India just after the country gained independence, the action in his new novel is set in the present day, drawing on the social and economic changes India has undergone in the last sixty years. Lata, the heroine of A Suitable Boy, is now a grandmother, and her grandson is the one in search of a good match.
Hamish Hamilton publishing director, Simon Prosser, said: “Since first reading The Golden Gate I have been a devoted follower of Vikram's writing - as a novelist, poet, memoirist and indeed e-mailer - so I cannot believe my good fortune in being able to work with Vikram on his next few books, including the sequel to the extraordinary A Suitable Boy. Nothing could delight me more."
Seth said: "In India, all my books have for years been published by Penguin. But I am very happy today to be joining foreign colonies of the Flightless One. They have already made me feel very welcome, and I hope in time to hatch many suitable eggs with them."