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Faber has won the rights to The Night of Baba Yaga, an “explosive” English-language debut by Japanese author Akira Otani, translated by Sam Bett.
Crime editor Sara Helen Binney acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to the “queer gangland thriller” from Hannah Whitaker at The Rights People. Soho Press will publish the book in the US, while Faber’s original paperback publication is scheduled for 12th September 2024.
“Fierce, mixed-race fighter Shindo has been kidnapped by the yakuza,” the synopsis says. “After brutally beating most of them in an attempt to escape, she is forced to work as a bodyguard to protect the gang boss’s sheltered daughter Shoko, a strange, friendless 18-year-old who could order Shindo’s death in a moment [...] But could there ever be a different life for two people like them?”
Binney said: “The best smart, vicious gangland thriller I’ve ever read – and that’s before you get to the queer love story at its heart. I’m overjoyed that Faber will be bringing Otani’s sparse, powerful writing to the UK for the first time.”
Otani was born in Tokyo, and started her career writing for video games. She has written a short story collection, an essay collection, as well as a novel, and The Night of Baba Yaga is her first book to be translated into English. Translator Bett is also a writer of fiction, and co-translated Mieko Kawakami’s novels Heaven (Picador), All the Lovers in the Night (Picador), and Breasts and Eggs (Pan Macmillan).