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Granta Books has acquired Acting Class, a new graphic novel from Nick Drnaso, creator of the first graphic novel to be nominated for the Booker Prize (Sabrina, also Granta).
Acting Class, Drnaso's third book, follows 10 strangers who meet at a free acting class led by a mysterious teacher. The lessons are strange and elliptical, and resonate in unexpected ways with what each participant is experiencing in their daily lives. With each session, their bond to one another grows deeper as the outside world seems to fall away. An excerpt of the novel appeared in the New Yorker in December 2020.
Editorial directors Rowan Cope and Anne Meadows acquired UK and Commonwealth (excluding Canada) rights for Granta from Samantha Haywood and Evan Brown at the Transatlantic Agency, acting on behalf of Nick Drnaso’s North American publisher Drawn & Quarterly. Rights have been sold in a further seven territories to date.
Drnaso's debut, Beverly, received the LA Times Book Prize for Best Graphic Novel. His second book, Sabrina, was a New York Times Notable Book of 2018 and received nominations for the 2018 Booker Prize, the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, the Eisner Award and the LD and LaVerne Harrell Clark Fiction Prize, among other awards.
Cope said: "Nick Drnaso is a graphic artist and literary storyteller of exceptional quality whose work reaches across genre and reveals deep and sometimes startling emotional truths. Acting Class offers an unflinching yet humane and completely compelling exploration of alienation, connection, fantasy and performance and, just as with Sabrina, Nick’s unique artistry and intelligence shine through on every page. The whole team at Granta is immensely proud of Nick and the success he achieved with Sabrina, and excited to collaborate with him again and grow his readership even further with Acting Class."
Granta will publish in summer 2022.