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Monique Roffey’s next novel has been snapped up by Harvill Secker with the Vintage imprint also releasing her prize-winning The Mermaid of Black Conch in paperback and e-book next month.
Alex Russell, senior editor at Vintage, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to the new novel alongside the paperback edition of The Mermaid of Black Conch from Isobel Dixon at Blake Friedmann. Vintage will publish the Costa-winning book in paperback and e-book on 10th June, backed by a high-profile marketing and publicity campaign.
Harvill Secker said: “Published into lockdown by Peepal Tree Press in April 2020, The Mermaid... has risen to become one of the most lauded novels of the year, winning the overall Costa Book of the Year after scooping the Costa Novel Award, and with nominations for the Rathbones Folio Prize, Goldsmiths Prize, Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, Ondaatje Prize and the OCM Bocas Prize.”
Roffey was born in Trinidad and mostly educated in the UK. She is a senior lecturer in Creative Writing at The Writing School, Manchester Metropolitan University, and a tutor for the Norwich Writers' Centre. The Mermaid of Black Conch was her seventh novel.
Roffey said: “The Mermaid of Black Conch is a lucky book and I am thrilled with this deal, which takes me from one dream team to another. I look forward to working with Alex Russell and the Harvill Secker and Vintage teams as my mermaid swims out into wider oceans, and with the new book.”
Russell said: “The Costa Prize judges celebrated The Mermaid of Black Conch as ‘a classic in the making’ and I couldn’t agree more. I escaped into Monique Roffey’s entrancing, unforgettable writing and was blown away by a story of love, jealousy and the search for freedom. Monique is a literary star and I cannot wait for readers to encounter the new novel too. It is thrilling to be joining her on a new adventure this summer and beyond at Vintage and Harvill Secker.”
Jeremy Poynting, founder and managing editor at Peepal Tree Press, added: “We will always be proud that we recognised immediately what a powerful novel The Mermaid was and that we enjoyed with Monique Roffey its well-deserved success. For us, authors always come first, so we knew that it was in Monique’s interests that the rights to her novel should go to Vintage.”
Beth Coates, publishing director at Vintage, commented: “We couldn’t be happier to have landed the wonder that is Monique Roffey and her Mermaid of Black Conch, as well as a new novel. We’ve long admired Monique’s vivid and fearless work and we can’t wait to join her on the next part of her literary journey.”
Roffey spoke earlier this month at the IPG’s Spring Conference about how "crucial and critical" independent publishers are following her frustration with larger companies that published her. Initially published with Simon & Schuster, releasing five books over 12 years, she left to publish The Tryst with Dodo Ink, after her editor at the time decided not to release it. She went on to run a Crowdfunder campaign to finance the PR campaign for The Mermaid of Black Conch, after it was picked up by Peepal Tree Press, a Leeds-based indie specialising in Caribbean literature.