Europa Editions signs George Makana Clark’s 'addictively brilliant’ novel
Europa Editions has acquired the new novel by George Makana Clark, author of The Raw Man (Jonathan Cape).
Millie Guille and Michael Reynolds bought world English-language rights to The Wreckers from Isobel Dixon at Blake Friedmann Literary Agency, with the book scheduled to be a lead title for autumn 2026.
Billed as One Hundred Years of Solitude meets The Count of Monte Cristo, the O Henry Prize-winning author’s polyphonic narrative is a centuries-spanning “tour de force and darkly funny revenge drama”, the publisher says.
Centred on the Last Will and Testament of Garoto Bárbaro de Castro, a mysterious document which is both a list of 13 bequests and a record of Garoto’s life story, The Wreckers moves between Angola, Cuba and Louisiana’s ‘Angola’ prison to examine the scars of the transatlantic slave trade, and the consequences of prolonged civil war.
Guille said: “The Wreckers is incredibly ambitious and addictively brilliant, with the plots and subplots spilling and growing from each other like nesting dolls. With echoes of Bolaño and Marquez, Makana Clark has written a modern classic.”
Makana Clark commented: “The Wreckers is a wild and brutal story, and I’m so grateful that my agent Isobel Dixon, and Millie Guille and Michael Reynolds of Europa, connected with it as they did. Europa is a dream publisher for this book, Millie a super-savvy editor and I can’t wait for it to be published.”
Dixon added: “George’s The Raw Man was a wonder, and I’m so thrilled he’s now brought us the great gift of this raucous, capacious, powerful and startling novel. It feels right that Millie and Michael’s huge enthusiasm for The Wreckers is carrying it out into the world on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond. Readers are in for quite a journey.”
