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Canongate has scooped An Abundance of Wild Roses, the first book by Pakistani writer, film-maker and political activist Feryal Ali-Gauhar to be published in the UK.
Ellah Wakatama, editor at large, acquired world rights from Ali-Gauhar directly, and will publish the title in March 2024.
The book is set in the Black Mountains of Pakistan, "a land woven with myth, chained with tradition and afflicted by war and the march of progress, [where] the spirits of the mountains keep a baleful eye on the struggles of the villagers who scrape a living from the bodies of their wildlife".
The publisher synopsis said: "As the elements turn on the village, can humanity find a way to co-exist with nature that doesn’t destroy either of them?"
Ali-Gauhar’s first novel was The Scent of Wet Earth in August (Penguin Books India), and her second novel, No Space for Further Burials (Akashic Books), won the Patras Bokhari award, and was translated into several European languages. Her third novel, An Abundance of Wild Roses, was written with the assistance of the Roger Deakin award for environmental activism.
The novelist has served as a United Nations Goodwill ambassador for the Population Fund. She is also an actor, film-maker, columnist and animal rights activist, and currently serves as advisor to the Government of Pakistan for the management of cultural heritage in areas where hydropower projects are being constructed.
She said: "I write from a place of loss – the denuding of forests, the depletion of water reserves, the starvation of the soil, the starvation of the soul in a world where hunger stalks every land. An Abundance of Wild Roses is a story of hope set among the highest mountains in the world, where the most vulnerable lives, those of women, young girls and unprotected animals, become the strength we all seek in times of despair.
"I am deeply indebted to Ellah Wakatama for her gentle guidance and unwavering faith. That Canongate should choose to publish this story is a source of infinite assurance, in my words, in my work, in the stories I want to tell."
Wakatama added: "An Abundance of Wild Roses is the perfect example of writing that brings the reader right to the window of the world."