Authors and illustrators whose work is represented in this edition of Rights Roundup are, upper row from left, Natàlia Romaní; Tülin Kozikoğlu; Deniz Üçbaşaran; and Tobias Hürter. On the lower row from left, Linda Jarosch; María José Ferrada; Sasha Filipenko; and Pip Williams
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
Who Do You Know in Accessible Publishing?
A reminder this week that the deadline is Wednesday (June 30) for submissions to the 2021 1 Accessible Book Consortium International Excellence Award for Accessible Publishing.
The winner will be named on October 20, opening day of Frankfurter Buchmesse with WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organization, making the presentation.
This set of dual recognitions goes to one publisher and one project, “each of which has demonstrated outstanding leadership and achievement in advancing the accessibility of commercial ebooks or other digital publications for people who are blind, visually impaired, or print-disabled in other ways.”
As well connected and perceptive as our Rights Roundup readers are, we think you may well know of a publishing house or an agency making real progress in terms of accessibility. And you can learn more about this unique competition, now supported by WIPO’s new partnership with Frankfurt Book Fair, right here.
As in each roundup, we use some of the promotional copy supplied to us by agents and rights directors, editing that copy to give you an idea about a book’s nature and tone. If you’d like to submit a deal to Publishing Perspectives, see the instructions at the end of this article.
The History of Nostalgia
By Natàlia Romaní
- Publisher: Univers, Barcelona
- Rights contact: Anna Soler-Pont, Pontas Literary & Film Agency
- Book info: Read more here
Reported rights sales:
- Newest – Italian: Salani (in a pre-empt)
- Spanish: Catedral
- Audio (Spanish and Catalan): Audible
Journalist Natàlia Romaní’s novel is her fiction debut and includes both real and imaginary characters.
“Set in Subotica in Serbia, Park Slope in New York, Pembroke University in Massachusetts, London, Sarajevo and its war, and the Trieste of Claudio Magris, Zagreb and its Museum of Broken Relationships, Iowa and its endless plains: The novel follows the lives of Sarah Greenfield, Natàlia Romaní, and the professor David Goldman, as well as his wife Laura Parker and Sarah’s aunt Emilia Sobesky and how their memories entangle their lives.”
Hold Hands
By Tülin Kozikoğlu, Deniz Üçbaşaran
- Publisher: Kırmızı Kedi, Istanbul
- Rights contact: Burcu Ünsal, Kalem Agency / rights9@kalemagency.com
- Book info: Read more here
No rights sales reported yet.
“In times when we hide behind masks and miss the touch of a loved one, this picture book will remind us of the value of physical communication.
“We see the life of a little girl through all the moments in life where she holds hands.
“Birth and death share the same moment: We welcome a baby by holding their hands but also hold hands of an old family member to soften our grief when saying goodbye.”
The Age of Uncertainty: How Physics Changed the Way We See the World, 1895-1945
By Tobias Hürter
- Publisher: Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart
- Rights contact: Andrea Vogel, Michael Gaeb Literary Agency
- Book info: Read more here
Reported rights sales:
- Newest – Sweden: Bonnier
- The Netherlands: Spectrum
- Italy: Mondadori
- Spain (World Spanish): Tusquets
“Marie Curie, Max Planck, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Ernst Schrödinger, and Albert Einstein didn’t only revolutionize physics; they redefined our world and the reality we live in.
“In The Age of Uncertainty, Tobias Hürter brings to life the golden age of physics and its dazzling, flawed, heroes and heroines. He immerses us in a half-century of global turmoil against which some of humankind’s greatest and strangest scientific discoveries unfolded.”
Loving the Woman I Am: A New Path Toward Self-Love
By Linda Jarosch
- Publisher: Vier-Türme-Verlag, Schwarzach am Main
- Rights contact: Rose Hofmann, Vier-Türme-Verlag
- Book info: Read more here
Reported rights sales:
- Newest – Poland: WAM
- Brazil: Vozes
- Italy: San Paolo
- Slovenia: Mohorjeva
- Czechia: Alpha
- World Spain: Grupo Loyola
“Kindness and warmth rather than self-centeredness: Self-love is an important subject for many women. All too often, we judge our own weaknesses harshly while comparing ourselves to false role models. This keeps us from treating ourselves with the values that we would look for in others—such respect, kindness, patience, and generosity.
“Using the example of Mary Magdalene and her story of liberation, Linda Jarosch here shows a path toward freedom in thinking, and thereby also toward freedom in living and feeling.
“Often, she writes, it’s a question of leaving behind outdated modes of living and thinking, and instead giving oneself permission to fully live out one’s own potential. “
Kramp
By María José Ferrada
- Publisher: Emecé/Planeta Chile
- Rights contact: Ampi Margini Literary Agency
- Book info: Read more here
Reported rights sales:
- Newest – French: Quidam Éditions
- Germa: Berenberg Verlag
- English (North America): Tin House
- Turkish: CAN Yayinlari
- Danish: Jensen og Dalgaard
- Portuguese (Brazil): Moinhos Editora
- Polish: Claroscuro
- Hungarian: Metropolis
- Italian: Edicola
- Spanish (Spain): Alianza
- Spanish (Argentina) Emecé Planeta
- Audio (Spanish): Storytel
“For seven-year-old M, the world is guided by a firm set of principles, based on her father D’s life as a traveling salesman.
“Enchanted by her father’s trade, M convinces him to take her along on his routes, selling hardware supplies against the backdrop of Pinochet-era Chile. María José Ferrada expertly captures a vanishing way of life and a father-daughter relationship on the brink of irreversible change.”
The Ex-Son
(Der ehemalige Sohn)
By Sasha Filipenko
- Publisher: Vremya, St. Petersburg
- Rights contact: Susanne Bauknecht, Diogenes Verlag AG, Zurich
- Book info: Read more here (PDF)
Reported rights sales:
- Newest – Italian: Edizioni E/O
- Dutch: Meridiaan
- French: Noir sur Blanc
- German: Diogenes
- Japanese: Shueisha
Sasha Filipenko is a Belarusian author, born in Minsk and writing in Russian since he left off an early career in classical music. He has worked as a journalist and a screenwriter based in St. Petersburg.
This book, Filipenko’s second to be translated into German, is a winner of the Fondation Jan Michalski Prize.
In The Ex-Son, Zisk exits a coma 10 years after being trampled–to find that the same dictator is in power and resistance is being brutally put down as before. The grandmother who cared for him has died, his family has moved on, the country has not. Is there a place for him now in Belarus?
The Dictionary of Lost Words
By Pip Williams
- Publisher: Affirm Press, Melbourne
- Rights contact: Linda Kaplan, Kaplan/DeFiore Rights
- Book info: Read more here
Reported rights sales:
- Newest – Japanese: Shogakukan
- Chinese (complex): Business Weekly
- Czech: Argo
- Dutch: House of Books
- French: Fleuve
- German: Diana
- Italian: Garzanti
- Korean: Elle Lit
- Portuguese (Brazil): Autentica
- Russian: Mann, Ivanov, and Ferber
- Spanish: Maeva
- English (North America): Ballentine
- United Kingdom: Chatto
“Set during the height of the women’s suffrage movement and with the Great War looming, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men.
“Inspired by actual events, author Pip Williams has delved into the archives of the Oxford English Dictionary to tell this highly original story.”
From the book’s Australian publisher, a video:
Submit Rights Deals to Publishing Perspectives
Do you have rights deals to report? Agents and rights directors can use our rights deal submission form to send us the information we need. If you have questions, please send them to Porter@PublishingPerspectives.com
Titles we choose to list must have both cover images and author images available. If there’s an illustrator or translator, we’d like that person’s photo as well. We prefer color.
In supplying these assets to us, please don’t use WeTransfer or other similar links–they may expire before we can process a submission.
In a sale listing, we require not only the language/territory into which the title has been sold but also the name of the publisher to which the title has been sold in that territory. The correct format is:
- Country, Language or Territory: Publisher
If we have used a submission from you in the past, please do not submit that same title again to us without an explanation of why you think it deserves another look.
We look forward to hearing from you.
More of Publishing Perspectives‘ rights roundups are here, and more from us on international rights trading is here.
More from us on issues of accessibility is here, more on Frankfurter Buchmesse is here, more on the World Intellectual Property Organization is here, and more on the International Publishers Association is here. Publishing Perspectives is the international media partner of IPA programs and services.
More from us on the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on international book publishing is here.