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The Black Spring Group has signed a novel 17 years in the making by Douglas Anthony Cooper, a Canadian living in Rome and author of Amnesia (Hyperion).
World English language rights were signed direct from the author for The Strangler Fig, which will be released in late 2021.
Cooper said the novel took him 17 years to write, explaining: “The Strangler Fig is not breezy, commercial fiction. It is, among other things, the Don Giovanni story, except that my Giovanni is a woman, a talented photographer who incorporates her seduced victims into images that destroy their dignity, and often their lives. It also involves a production of Strindberg’s 'Dream Play', performed by despairing cam girls; and a choreographer whose entire troupe consists of professional fighters who have been crippled in the ring. The introduction has been written by Jennifer Bloomer, a scholar of Joyce and Piranesi, and probably the world’s leading expert on Finnegans Wake. All this to say: it is not a beach read. It is, however, precisely the novel I wanted to write – the most difficult task I have ever undertaken – and I am thrilled it has found a home. A home with a prestigious address.”