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Jonathan Cape has bought the rights to a debut novel from a "hugely exciting new voice".
Beth Coates, senior editor at Jonathan Cape and Vintage, secured the deal for a five-figure sum from Cathryn Summerhayes, on behalf of Bill Clegg, literary agent at William Morris Endeavor Entertainment.
The End by Salvatore Scibona will be published by Cape in November 2010. The title focuses on 15th August 1953, the day of a tumultuous street carnival in Elephant Park. The publisher said the novel "revolves around a terrible crime and twists together intense inner monologues and heartbreaking descriptions of smothering poverty and labour, fractured families, and stabbing revelations of prejudice and racism".
Coates said: "The End really does feel like a Great American Novel - breathtaking, heartbreaking, challenging and transporting. It’s an extraordinary achievement from a hugely exciting new voice… It’s an honour to be publishing him for the first time in the UK."
Scibona was the only author listed in The New Yorker’s list of 20 novelists under 40 to not already have a UK publisher. He administers the writing fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts.