The Bookseller – Rights – Oneworld wins auction for Em Strang’s ‘daring’ debut novel 

Oneworld has signed Quinn, the “daring” debut novel by Scottish poet Em Strang. 

Writer Juliet Mabey acquired world rights, together with audio, at public sale from Irene Baldoni at Georgina Capel Associates. Oneworld will publish Quinn as a superlead hardback in March 2023, with specifically commissioned linocuts from Yorkshire-based artist Izzy Williamson.

“Quinn is serving a life sentence for against the law he’s satisfied he hasn’t dedicated,” the synopsis reads. “Absolutely the authorities have gotten it improper, and once they discover his childhood sweetheart, Andrea, his title will probably be cleared? As his parole date nears, he receives a letter from Andrea’s mom, who invitations Quinn to share her dwelling. What seems a real act of radical forgiveness is nonetheless influenced by extra advanced motivations.

“As they navigate the thorny terrain of guilt, justice and the mutual want that underpins their relationship, the story of Quinn’s previous – and his thoughts – step by step unravels, setting in movement a closing reckoning.”

Mabey commented: “I’ve at all times been interested in unreliable narrators and novels that interrogate the complexities and inconsistencies of the human thoughts, and Em brings a really sharp and unique eye to each her story and her eponymous hero. It is a daring and ingenious first novel with a uncommon musicality to the prose befitting a poet whose work has obtained a number of prizes and award nominations.”

Strang has a PhD in artistic writing from the College of Glasgow and her work as tutor in Scottish prisons since 2013 has knowledgeable the writing of this novel. Her work has been shortlisted for a lot of prizes, together with the Fitzcarraldo Novel Prize and the Seamus Heaney Finest First Assortment Prize. She is the recipient of the Saltire Poetry Guide of the Yr 2017 and of a Scottish Guide Belief New Author Award.

She stated: “I’ve spent a decade working with long-term prisoners in Scotland, attempting to know and are available to phrases with notions of justice and accountability: does guilt start and finish with the perpetrator of a violent act or are all of us in a roundabout way culpable? It’s been a troublesome e book to write down, not least as a result of it focuses on male violence in direction of ladies – such a urgent concern of our instances – and tries to deal with Quinn as a complete individual, moderately than neatly labelling him. Sitting with that broader perspective has been profoundly unsettling, however obligatory: how else can we arrive at a spot the place restorative justice is perhaps potential?”

Baldoni added: “Like a recent Raskolnikov, Quinn is a personality that can stick with me for the remainder of my life. Visionary and poetic, this novel navigates the limitless potential for violence and care, revenge and forgiveness, grief and therapeutic. Em Strang tackles poisonous masculinity head on however her writing is way from a box-ticking train — I’m in awe of her means to lend a voice to her characters, to actually hearken to them and allow them to converse no matter they must say.”