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Saqi Books imprint Telegram has bagged The Red Children, an "astonishing" new novel by Orange Prize-shortlisted writer and Royal Society of Literature vice-president Maggie Gee.
The Red Children will publish on 3rd March 2022 after the publisher acquired world rights direct from the author. Telegram Books will simultaneously release a 20th anniversary edition of The White Family, Gee’s Orange Prize-shortlisted novel, with a new introduction by Booker Prize-winner Bernardine Evaristo.
Set in the near future and against a backdrop of migration pressures, climate change and increasing isolationism in England, The Red Children addresses the refugee crisis and explores themes of far-right extremism and the aftermath of a mysterious disease.
Heralded by Telegram as "a deeply humane antidote to today’s bleakness and climate despair", this is the eighth Gee novel Telegram has published, and it marks the 20th anniversary since their relationship began.
Commissioning editor Elizabeth Briggs said: "A new novel by Maggie Gee is always a big event. Maggie is never afraid to tackle the big issues that matter in her writing. In this astonishing novel, she explores the grey areas where climate change, migration, class, race and gender intersect with her customary nuance and intelligence. Maggie has brought so much to the industry in a career spanning five decades: not only through her writing, but through her teaching and voluntary positions as well. Now she has brought Telegram the climate novel for our times, and it’s the novel we all need right now: one that restores belief in the power of community and human kindness. We could not be prouder to publish Maggie Gee and are very excited to introduce The Red Children to the world."
Gee said of her new novel: "I so enjoyed finding a way to do something that sounds impossible – writing an upbeat, funny novel about climate change. The Red Children has changed shape entirely since I started it in 2013 – the breakthrough came during lockdown. It's a fable for clever adults or children, and the brilliant team at Telegram instantly 'got' it.
"This is not my first venture into climate change fiction – I saw it coming as long ago as Light Years in 1985 and Where Are the Snows (1990), but I think this book, which has talking ravens and tortoises and lovable human beings of many surprising kinds, gives it a genuinely new perspective."