Canongate to publish Dave Eggers' new novel
Canongate is set to publish Dave Eggers’ new novel. Canongate’s CEO Jamie Byng has acquired UK and Commonwealth rights (excluding Canada) to Contrapposto, by the Pulitzer and National Book Award shortlisted author. Contrapposto will be published by Canongate in July 2026 alongside Knopf in North America.
The book follows Cricket, a shy kid who likes drawing, when he first meets Olympia. The synopsis continues: “She’s older, more confident; she bullies him into some light vandalism and instantly he’s in love. When they’re together, they talk about their futures, how they’re going to travel the world, the beauty and rapture of art.
“Then those futures start to arrive in unexpected ways, the years and decades pile up between them, the art world seduces and disappoints and frustrates them. And they have to figure out, again and again, what it is to be an artist, and who and what to love.”
Eggers is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and is the recipient of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the American Book Award and the Newbery Medal.
Byng said: “Dave Eggers is one of the most original, fearless and soulful writers of his generation and so it is an enormous honour and privilege that he has decided that he wants Canongate to publish his new novel. And what an exceptional book Contrapposto is. It brought to mind other novels I love, including John Williams’ Stoner, Jonathan Frantzen’s Freedom and Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, but it is also a dazzling work of singular brilliance, a love story that spans six decades that I think readers are going to fall for as hard as I and all my colleagues have.”
