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Simon & Schuster imprint Scribner has triumphed in a four-way auction for US editor Megha Majumdar's debut novel.
Chris White, senior commissioning editor at Scribner, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding India and Canada, with a “significant” five figure advance from Fiona Baird at WME. North American and Indian rights were pre-empted by Jordan Pavlin at Knopf. A Burning will be published by Knopf in the US in the summer of 2020 and Scribner in the UK in early 2021.
The book charts the aftermath of a terrorist attack in contemporary Kolkata and the effect it has on the lives of the novel’s three central characters – Jivan, Lovely and PT Sir who “are all striving in their own ways to let slip the chains of their upbringing and break into India’s emergent middle-class," S&S UK said. “As they do so, they must contend with the dark forces of Hindu nationalism that will have an impact on all their futures.
"Transfused with a deeply human spirit and told with a subtlety and verve that are the hallmarks of only the finest novelists, A Burning marks the arrival of a major literary talent.”
Majumdar, an associate editor at New York-based Catapult Books, said: "I've long admired the Scribner list, with brilliant books like Rachel Khong's Goodbye, Vitamin and Julia Phillips' Disappearing Earth, and I'm delighted to have my novel find a home there. Chris White's thoughtful reading of the book blew me away, and his passion for publishing meaningful fiction has me very excited.”
White added: “If you’d asked me to describe my dream acquisition, I couldn’t have imagined anything better than Megha’s extraordinary debut: the characters leap from every page and the sense of place is overwhelming. Megha’s writing is deeply humane – sometimes funny, sometimes unbearably sad – and written with a clarity of thought and purpose that makes for a unique and heady combination. I’m so thrilled that she has chosen to come to Scribner and I can’t wait for other people to discover what an unbelievably talented writer she is.”
The news comes shortly after White won a four-way bidding war for Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by South Korean novelist Cho Nam-Joo.