BLACK INC - LONDON RIGHTS GUIDE 2020
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BL ACK
INC.
LOND ON RIG HT S GUIDE 2020
BL ACK INC.
L O N D O N R I G H T S G U I D E 2 02 0
Factory 19 4
The Inheritors 5
Melting Moments 6
On the Line 7
A Couple of Things Before the End 8
Act of Grace 9
One Hundred Days 10
Sly Fox 11
The Beat of Life 12
We, Hominids 13
Shanghai Acrobat 14
Everything Harder Than Everyone Else 15
Men at Work 16
The Shortest History series 17
The Winter Road 21
Car Crash 22
Muddy People 23
The Town that Told the Story 24
See What You Made Me Do 25
The Honey Factory 26
Writers on Writers series 27
Jacinda Ardern 29
The Mutant Project 30
Contest for the Indo-Pacific 31
China Panic 33
Brothels of Little Lon 34
Animals and the Law 35
My Tongue is My Own 36
Russians, White and Red 37
Black Inc. Agents 38
Black Inc. Contacts 40
BL ACK INC . BOOKS LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020 | 3
Factory 19
Dennis Glover
In the spirit of George Orwell’s Animal Farm comes a
darkly funny satire on technology, the gig economy and
the smartphone – and what would happen if we re-created
a world without them.
They tell us that human happiness lies only in the future.
But what if it really lies in the past?
Hobart, 2022: a city with declining population, in
the grip of a dark recession. A rusty ship sails into
the harbour and begins to unload its cargo on the
site of the once famous but now abandoned Gallery
of Future Art, known to the world as GoFA.
One day the city’s residents are awoken by a high-
pitched sound no one has heard for two generations –
a factory whistle. GoFA’s owner, world-famous
JULY 2020 tycoon Dundas Faussett, is creating his most
LITERARY FICTION ambitious installation yet. He’s going to defeat the
Imprint: Black Inc.
internet’s dominance over our lives by establishing
a new Year Zero: 1948. Those whose jobs and lives
RRP: AU$32.99
have been destroyed by Amazon and Uber and
Paperback | 234 × 153mm | 304pp
Airbnb are invited to fight back in the only way that
Manuscript: Available can possibly succeed: by living as if the internet
Rights held: World; film/TV and the smartphone had never been invented.
The hold over our lives by Gates, Bezos, Musk,
Praise for The Last Man in Europe Zuckerberg and the rest, starts to loosen as the
“Dennis Glover has written a novel that revolutionary example of Factory 19 spreads. Can
captures George Orwell as he began to write nostalgia really defeat the future? Can the little
people win back the world? We are about to find out.
the book he saw as the culmination of all
he’d learned in a bloody century about DENNIS GLOVER, the son of factory labourers,
tyranny, fear, valor, and love.” —NPR grew up in a town just like Factory 19. Educated at
Monash and Cambridge universities, he has made a
“Rivetingly told . . . A terrifically assured career as one of Australia’s leading speechwriters and
hybrid of fiction and life-writing” political commentators. His first novel, The Last Man
—The New Statesman in Europe, was nominated for several literary prizes,
including the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.
“Engrossing, timely and finely detailed . . . a Factory 19 is his second novel.
must read for lovers of history, literature, or
politics” —Library Journal (starred review) RIGHTS SOLD TO THE LAST MAN IN EUROPE:
NORTH AMERICA (OVERLOOK PRESS) AND UK/
COMM EX ANZ (POLYGON)
BL ACK INC . BOOKS LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020 | 4
The Inheritors
Richesse Oblige
Hannelore Cayre
Translated by Stephanie Smee
An unforgettable new novel by the award-winning author
of the international French bestseller The Godmother.
“She had been dead now for four days and I had
become rich. Unimaginably rich.”
Blanche de Rigny has always considered herself the
black sheep of the family. And a black sheep on
crutches at that. But it turns out her family tree has
branches she didn’t even know existed. And many of
them are rotten to the core. As Blanche becomes
aware of the legacy left by her wealthy Parisian
ancestors, she wonders about engaging in a little
family tree pruning of her own.
SEPTEMBER 2020
LITERARY FICTION However, with great wealth comes great
responsibility – a form of richesse oblige, perhaps –
Imprint: Black Inc. and Blanche also has a plan to use her inheritance to
RRP: AU$29.99 cure the world of its ills.
Paperback | 210 × 135mm | 224pp Spanning two centuries, from Paris on the eve of the
Manuscript: March 2020 Franco-Prussian war to the modern day, this
Rights held: World English-language unforgettable family saga lays bare the persistent
Other rights: Éditions Métailié and poisonous injustice of inequality. In her
trademark razor-sharp style, Hannelore Cayre again
delivers the sardonic humour and devilish creativity
that made The Godmother an international bestseller.
HANNELORE CAYRE is a French novelist,
screenwriter, director and criminal lawyer. Her most
recent work, The Godmother (La Daronne), won the
European Crime Fiction Prize and the Grand Prix
de Littérature Policière, and featured on the 2019 New
York Times List of 100 Notable Books. It has been made
into a major film starring Isabelle Huppert.
BL ACK INC . BOOKS LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020 | 5
Melting Moments
Anna Goldsworthy
A charming, sharply observed first novel from one
of Australia’s best writers
Sometimes events occur as one might wish but sometimes
they do not.
So says the ever-practical Ruby, always striving
for what is right and proper, from the time we
meet her as a striking soldier’s fiancée through to
the rather less steady years of her old age. With an
eyebrow pencil in one hand and gardening shears
in the other, Ruby navigates the intervening years
doing her duty as a woman, allowing marriage and
motherhood to fill her with purpose and pleasure –
and only occasionally wondering, Is this all there is?
In her moving, captivating fiction debut, award-
MARCH 2020 winning author Anna Goldsworthy recreates
LITERARY FICTION Adelaide and Melbourne of half a century ago,
Imprint: Black Inc.
bringing a family to life as they move through the
decades, challenging and caring for and loving one
RRP: AU$29.99
another, often in surprising ways. Charming and
Paperback | 234 × 153mm | 240pp
sharply observed, Melting Moments is, like Ruby
Manuscript: Available herself, a gentle powerhouse.
Rights held: World English-language
Other rights: Curtis Brown Australia
ANNA GOLDSWORHY is the award-winning author
of Piano Lessons, Welcome to Your New Life and the
Quarterly Essay Unfinished Business: Sex, Freedom
“A tender evocation of times past, and a and Misogyny. Her writing has appeared in The Monthly,
subtle, elegant portrait of one woman’s life The Age, The Australian, The Adelaide Review and
and loves as she grows and adapts to a
The Best Australian Essays.
changing world” —Ceridwen Dovey,
“A delightful and beautifully written book, suffused
award-winning author of Only the Animals
with humour and enquiry into the domestic habits,
and In the Garden of the Fugitives
social expectations and morals of a period and place”
—Joan London, author of The Golden Age, Publisher’s
Weekly book of the year 2016
AUTHOR’S PREVIOUS BOOK, PIANO LESSONS, WAS
PUBLISHED AROUND THE WORLD IN MULTIPLE
EDITIONS
BL ACK INC . BOOKS LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020 | 6
On the Line
À la ligne
Joseph Ponthus
Translated by Stephanie Smee
Unable to find work in his field, Joseph Ponthus
enlists with a temp agency and starts to pick up
casual shifts in the fish processing plants and
abattoirs of Brittany. Day after day he records
with infinite precision the nature of work on the
production line: the noise, the weariness, the dreams
stolen by the repetitive nature of exhausting rituals
and physical suffering. But he finds solace in a life
previously lived. Shelling prawns, he dreams of
Alexandre Dumas. Pushing cattle carcasses, he
recalls Apollinaire. And, in the grace of the blank
spaces created by his insistent return to a new line
of text – mirroring his continued return to the
JULY 2020 production line – we discover the woman he loves,
LITERARY FICTION the happiness of a Sunday, Pok Pok the dog, the
smell of the sea.
Imprint: Black Inc.
RRP: AU$27.99 In this celebrated French bestseller, translated by
Paperback | 210 × 135mm | 272pp Stephanie Smee, Ponthus captures the mundane,
the beautiful and the strange, writing with an
Manuscript: Available
elegance and humour that sit in poignant contrast
Rights held: World English-language
with the blood and sweat of the factory floor. On the
Other rights: Editions La Ronde Table Line (À la ligne) is a poet’s ode to manual labour,
“Joseph Ponthus has positioned himself as and to the human spirit that makes it bearable.
one of the great authors of our times with After studying literature and social work, JOSEPH
his arrival on the literary scene” —L’Alsace PONTHUS worked for over ten years as a social worker
and special needs teacher in the suburbs of Paris. In
2012 he co-authored Nous . . . La Cité (The Suburbs are
STEPHANIE SMEE is the translator of
Ours). He lives and works in Brittany, France.
Hannelore Cayre’s prize-winning work
of literary crime fiction, The Godmother.
Her translation of rediscovered WWII OVER 40,000 COPIES SOLD IN FRANCE
memoir, No Place to Lay One’s Head,
won the JQ–Wingate Prize. AWARDS INCLUDE: GRAND PRIX RTL / READ 2019;
PRIX RÉGINE DEFORGES 2019; JEAN AMILA-
MECKERT PRIZE 2019; PRIZE FOR THE FIRST
NOVEL FOR LIBRARY READERS OF THE CITY
OF PARIS; PRIX EUGÈNE DABIT 2019
BL ACK INC . BOOKS LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020 | 7
A Couple of Things
Before the End
Stories
Sean O’Beirne
This brilliant collection mixes the storytelling originality
of George Saunders and Lydia Davis with a sensibility
all its own, taking the reader on an extraordinary tour
of an old and a new Australia.
A woman on a passenger ship in 1958 gets involved
with a young, wild Barry Humphries. A man looks
back to the 1970s and his time as a member of
Australia’s least competent scout troop. In 1988, a
teenage boy recalls his sexual initiation, out on the
tanbark. In 2015, two sisters text in Kmart about
how to manage their irascible, isolated mum.
FEBRUARY 2020
Then, in the near future, a racist demagogue
LITERARY FICTION addresses the press the day after his electoral triumph.
As the cities heat up and lose their water, a lady
Imprint: Black Inc. from one of the “better suburbs” makes every effort
RRP: AU$27.99 to get her family into an exclusive gated community.
Paperback | 210 × 135mm | 208pp Outstandingly original, bitingly satirical and written
Manuscript: Available in a remarkable range of voices, A Couple of Things
Rights held: World; film/TV Before the End is a powerful vision of where we are –
and where we may be headed.
SEAN O’BEIRNE is a bookseller
and critic. He grew up in Melbourne’s “The Victorians were superlative hypocrites, which is why
outer suburbs, and studied arts, law Robert Browning’s dramatic monologues packed such
and acting. This is his first book. punch. How unfortunate, then, that O’Beirne’s updated
versions succeed so marvellously in this place at this
moment. Collectively, they suggest things would be greatly
improved if we followed Browning’s admonition – to ‘be
yourself, imperial, plain, and true.’” —The Australian
“The collection is shaded dark and light, by turns hilarious
and a warning beacon. Like George Saunders or Miranda
July, O’Beirne captures the weirdness of inner-life.”
—Five-star review, ArtsHub
BL ACK INC . BOOKS LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020 | 8
Act of Grace
Anna Krien
From an award-winning author comes an electrifying
story of fear and sacrifice, and what people will do to
outrun the shadows.
Iraqi aspiring pianist Nasim falls from favour with
Saddam Hussein and his psychopathic son,
triggering a perilous search for safety. In Australia,
decades later, Gerry is in fear of his tyrannical
father, Toohey, who has returned from the Iraq War
bearing the physical and psychological scars of
conflict. Meanwhile, Robbie is dealing with her own
father’s dementia when the past enters the present.
These characters’ worlds intertwine in a brilliant
narrative of guilt and reckoning, trauma and
survival. Crossing the frontiers of war, protest and
MONTH 2018 reconciliation, Act of Grace is a meditation on
SUBJECTS inheritance: the damage that one generation passes
on to the next, and the potential for transformation.
ISBN:
ANNA KRIEN is the author of the award-winning
Imprint:
Night Games and Into the Woods, as well as two
AU$
Quarterly Essays, Us and Them and The Long Goodbye.
NZ$ Her writing has been published in The Monthly, The Age,
Paperback, size, pp The Best Australian Essays, The Best Australian Stories
and The Big Issue. In 2014 she won the UK William Hill
Sports Book of the Year Award, and in 2018 she
received a Sidney Myer Fellowship.
OCTOBER 2019
LITERARY FICTION
“Act of Grace is bold, brilliant and breathtakingly humane.”
Imprint: Black Inc. —Anna Funder, author of All That I Am
RRP: AU$32.99
“Masterful – a far-reaching tapestry of a novel. Nuanced
Paperback | 234 × 153mm | 336pp
and whip-smart, this is a work of profound empathy – a book
Manuscript: Available
of and for our times. As Act of Grace unfolds with precise
Rights held: Translation; film/TV
muscularity, Krien’s inhabitation of each character approaches
Rights sold: UK/Comm ex ANZ (Serpent’s
the divine.” —Peggy Frew, author of Islands and Hope Farm
Tail); ANZ audio (Wavesound)
Other rights: InkWell Management
AWARDS FOR ACT OF GRACE: SHORTLISTED, 2019
VICTORIAN PREMIER’S LITERARY AWARDS;
LONGLISTED, 2019 INDIE BOOK AWARDS
BL ACK INC . BOOKS LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020 | 9
YOUNG ADULT FICTION
One Hundred Days
Alice Pung
Wise, witty and tautly written, One Hundred Days
grips from the beginning. Part bildungsroman, part
psychodrama and part intergenerational novel, it
follows the story of a young Asian-Australian teen
who falls pregnant, and her suffocatingly close
relationship with a traditional and overprotective
mother. A subtle and poignant meditation on class,
gender and ethnicity, it is sure to resonate with new
and existing fans of Pung: a writer who never
repeats herself.
In high school, a few of my friends seemed to disappear
after they got pregnant, and I’d often wonder what
happened to them. It wasn’t until I had my own son that
I understood the cultural practice of confinement. I
realised my friends’ mothers had been keeping them “safe”
APRIL 2021 at home during the pregnancy, away from prying eyes;
YOUNG ADULT FICTION but also confining them for a month after birth. For a
fifteen- or sixteen-year-old to be sequestered away for all
Imprint: Black Inc.
those months would seem like an eternity. One
RRP: AU$19.99
Hundred Days is about time – how it feels to have too
Paperback | 234 × 153mm | 288pp much of it or too little – and what it’s like to be too young
Manuscript: Available to understand how finite time is.
Rights held: UK/Comm; film/TV
One Hundred Days is the period of time my character,
Other rights: Curtis Brown Australia
Karuna, is isolated at home in the public housing
apartment she shares with her mother – “Grand Mar” to
Praise for Alice Pung the baby. In East-Asian (China, Korea, Japan) and
Southeast Asian cultures, one hundred days was the
“Alice Pung totally nails it with Laurinda.
critical period within which a baby might not survive
Funny, horrifying, and sharp as a serpent’s
infancy. So when the baby safely reached this milestone,
fangs.” —John Marsden, two-time winner families would hold a Hundred Days party, to celebrate
of the American Library Association Book the child’s healthy continuing existence in the world. But
of the Year Award ultimately, my novel One Hundred Days is a celebration
of a teenage mother’s resilience. —Alice Pung
“Alice Pung is a gem. Her voice is the real
thing.” —Amy Tan, author of The ALICE PUNG is an award-winning writer, editor,
Joy Luck Club teacher and lawyer based in Melbourne. She is author
of the internationally bestselling memoirs Unpolished
Gem and Her Father’s Daughter, and the editor of the
anthologies Growing Up Asian in Australia and My First
Lesson. Her first young adult novel, Laurinda, sold over
20,000 copies in ANZ.
BL ACK INC . BOOKS LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020 | 10Sly Fox
The Unauthorised Biography
of Lachlan Murdoch
Paddy Manning
He has grown up in the media spotlight, and
in 2019 emerged as clear winner of the family’s
drawn-out succession war, but Lachlan Murdoch
remains a mysterious figure and a mess of apparent
contradictions. Always his father’s favourite,
Lachlan was independent enough to walk away from
it all in 2007. Yet the rebellious, tattooed playboy
has become the family’s hardline-conservative
standard-bearer. Over a 25-year career Lachlan has
survived a string of own-goals – including expensive
disasters from Super-League to One.Tel – and
dodged the fallout from the phone-hacking scandal
that nearly wrecked the Murdoch business globally.
NOVEMBER 2021 He is now poised to inherit control of the dominant
BIOGRAPHY Fox and News conglomerates, perhaps the most
powerful media empire in the world.
Imprint: Black Inc.
RRP: AU$32.99 Sly Fox will investigate: who is Lachlan Murdoch,
Paperback | 234 × 153mm | 320pp and where will he take the family empire – to new
Manuscript: TBA 2021 extremes of fact-free populism, or back towards the
Rights held: World ex film/TV political centre? At a time of disruption in business
and politics, can Lachlan keep the Murdoch empire
Other rights: Curtis Brown Australia
afloat?
Praise for Inside the Greens PADDY MANNING is the contributing politics
editor to The Monthly, and the author of biographies
“A much-needed work: comprehensive, of Malcolm Turnbull and Nathan Tinkler, and an
detailed and impressively sourced.” investigation into fracking in Australia. During almost
—Inside Story twenty years in journalism he has worked for Crikey,
The Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Financial Review
“A monumental effort . . . Inside the and The Australian, and has won several awards for
Greens manages to be not just a fine journalistic excellence. His previous book with Black
resource on a single party, but of the times Inc. is Inside the Greens.
that produced them.” —Crikey
BL ACK INC . BOOKS LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020 | 11DR. REINHARD FRIEDL
The Beat of Life
THE A Surgeon Reveals the Secrets of the Heart
Dr Reinhard Friedl and Shirley Seul
B E AT Translated by Gert Reifarth
The heart is our most important – and perhaps most
OF mysterious – organ. Every day it pumps 9000 litres
of blood and beats around 100,000 times.
But the heart is more than just a pump. In all major
LIFE human cultures, it is seen as the source of love,
sympathy, joy, courage, strength and wisdom. Why
is this so?
A surgeon reveals the secrets of the heart Having witnessed the extraordinary complexity and
unpredictability of human hearts in the operating
theatre – each one individual in its make-up, like a
fingerprint – heart surgeon Reinhard Friedl went on
a search for answers.
SEPTEMBER 2020
HEALTH; MEDICINE He closely examined the latest findings in
neurocardiology and psychocardiology, and in The
Imprint: Black Inc. Beat of Life he shares his discoveries. In the tradition
RRP: AU$34.99 of Giulia Enders’ Gut and Norman Doidge’s The
Paperback | 234 × 153mm | 320pp Brain that Changes Itself, he uses riveting personal
Manuscript: May 2020; sample stories to illustrate the complex relationship between
the heart, the brain and the psyche.
available now
Rights held: World English-language The Beat of Life ends with a plea: that we recognise
Other rights: Random House Germany the heart’s wisdom and adopt a more heart-centred
way of living, which will lead to greater health.
DR REINHARD FRIEDL is an eminent German
surgeon who has held thousands of hearts in his hands.
He has operated on premature babies and repaired the
heart valves of the very old; implanted artificial heart
turbines and stitched up stabbing wounds to the heart.
BL ACK INC . BOOKS LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020 | 12We, Hominids
Frank Westerman
Translated by Sam Garrett
A roving philosophical field trip into what makes us human.
In We, Hominids, one of Holland’s greatest non-
fiction writers hunts down answers to anthropology’s
most fundamental questions: Who are we? What
makes us different from animals? With an ancient
skull as his starting point, he travels the globe,
tracing the search for the first human being – the
missing link between humans and apes. The result is
a compelling mixture of reportage, travelogue and
essay.
Westerman discovers a plethora of origin
hypotheses; introduces us to the world of skull
hunters, leading experts in our fossil ancestry; and
AUGUST 2021 critically reviews the work of illustrious
ANTHROPOLOGY anthropologists. He examines the influence of new
DNA technology and the rise of female scientists.
Imprint: Black Inc.
RRP: AU$32.99
The search for the first human picks at the dividing
line between normalcy and anomaly. Any
Paperback | 234 × 153mm | 284pp
description of who we are and where we come from
Manuscript: April 2021
is coloured by the zeitgeist. The constantly changing
Rights held: World English-language theories of human evolution show that we are
Other rights: Querido Fosfor doomed to continuously review what we think we
know. Still, Westerman emphasises the importance
“This is Sapiens behind the scenes:
of evidence: “The facts cling to me and I cling to the
exciting, shocking and real.” —Dr. José
facts. I will continue to pick them up, turn them
Joordens, Naturalis around and illuminate them with the headlamp of
“In We, Hominids, Westerman reaches the
my imagination.”
apex of his abilities [. . .] Vivid, wonderful, FRANK WESTERMAN is a highly acclaimed Dutch
entertaining, exotic, captivating” —Hans non-fiction writer. His work has been translated into
Cottyn, De Standaard der Letteren sixteen languages and has received numerous awards,
including the Kapuściński Prize (Poland), the Premio
Terzani (Italy) and the Prix du Livre du Réel (France).
SAM GARRETT is an award-winning
translator of over thirty novels and
works of non-fiction. He is the only TRANSLATION RIGHTS SOLD TO ITALY (IPERBOREA);
translator to have twice won the British SWEDEN (WEYLER FÖRLAG); FRANCE (ÉDITIONS
Society of Authors’ Vondel Prize for
STOCK); POLAND (AGORA); GERMANY (AUFBAU)
Dutch–English translation.
BL ACK INC . BOOKS LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020 | 13Shanghai Acrobat
An Orphan Boy’s Inspiring True Story
of Courage and Determination in
Revolutionary China
Jingjing Xue
Translated by Bo Ai
For readers of Mao’s Last Dancer comes the inspiring
true story of a world-famous acrobat who escaped
communist China to begin a new life in Australia.
Jingjing Xue was born in China in the 1950s, during
one of the worst times in the reign of communist
leader Mao Zedong, or Chairman Mao. Mao’s
extreme five-year industrialisation plan – the Great
Leap Forward – left much of the population
starving, destitute and gripped with fear. Jingjing,
abandoned to an orphanage as a young boy, was
AUGUST 2020 destined to a life of hardship before officials singled
MEMOIR him out and enlisted him to train with the Shanghai
Acrobatics School.
Imprint: Black Inc.
RRP: AU$32 .99 This autobiography tells the moving story of his rise
Paperback | 234 × 153mm | 336pp from poverty to become an admired performer in
Manuscript: March 2020 China and beyond – and of his extraordinary escape
Rights held: World ex film/TV
from Mao’s repressive regime to secure his freedom.
Set in China from the early years of the communist
Other rights: Golvan Arts Management
era, through the turbulent period of the Cultural
Revolution, and to a new life in Australia, this is a
story of hope and perseverance, of overcoming
adversity and of finding a place to belong.
JINGJING XUE was a star performer with the
Shanghai Acrobatic Troupe. Considered one of
China’s best acrobats, from 1961 to 1987 he performed
around the world with the Shanghai Circus. He trained
performers in China and, later, at the National Institute
of Circus Arts in Melbourne, the city where he now lives.
BL ACK INC . BOOKS LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020 | 14Everything Harder
Than Everyone Else
Jenny Valentish
When journalist Jenny Valentish wrote a memoir
about addiction, she met many who treat drug-
taking like an Olympic sport, exploring their
capacity to push their bodies, enjoying their
notoriety. It is this breed of person who, when
they quit, might take up marathon running, getting
the same kick out of five a.m. starts as two a.m. lines
of coke, or become obsessed with rock-climbing,
Instagramming cheesy thumbs-ups from sunset
mountaintops.
In Everything Harder Than Everyone Else, Valentish
interviews pro-wrestlers, bodybuilders, adult-fi lm
performers, iron women, performance artists and
JUNE 2021 extreme athletes, exploring what motivates some
SOCIETY AND CULTURE people to adopt one seemingly extreme persona after
another. A curious Venn diagram can be drawn:
Imprint: Black Inc. retired porn stars put on wrestling leotards;
RRP: AU$32.99 ex-wrestlers exploit their alter egos in adult films;
Paperback | 234 × 153mm | 288pp dog-tired MMA fighters roleplay S&M. It seems
Manuscript: January 2021; sample the sense of self can be so shaky that if they quit one
available now persona, they must leap to another or feel adrift.
Rights held: World ex film/TV But these rambunctious examples provide a lens for
Other rights: Jane Novak Literary Agency our own lives and habits. Valentish explores relatable
themes, such as sensation-seeking and the role of
dopamine; impulsivity and instant gratification;
JENNY VALENTISH is the author of
steroids and body dysmorphia; competition and
the acclaimed Women of Substances, a
catharsis; self-sabotage; obsession; reinvention. By
regular contributor to The Sydney
understanding those who must always push the
Morning Herald and The Saturday Paper,
boundaries, we can recognise and illuminate our
and former editor of Time Out Melbourne
own motivations.
and Triple J’s Jmag. She grew up in
Slough, a satellite town of London, and
moved to Australia in 2006. RIGHTS SOLD TO WOMAN OF SUBSTANCES: WORLD
ENGLISH-L ANGUAGE EX ANZ (HEAD OF ZEUS);
WORLD AUDIO (WAVESOUND)
WOMAN OF SUBSTANCES LONGLISTED FOR THE
2017 WALKLEY BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD
BL ACK INC . BOOKS LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020 | 15Men at Work
Australia’s Parenthood Trap
Annabel Crabb
When New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda
Ardern, announced her pregnancy, the headlines
raced around the world. But when Australia’s Scott
Morrison and Josh Frydenberg became the first
prime minister and treasurer duo since the 1970s to
take on their roles while bringing up young children,
this detail passed largely without notice. Why do we
still accept that fathers will be absent? Why do so
few men take parental leave in this country? Why is
flexible and part-time work still largely a female
preserve?
In the past half-century, women have revolutionised
the way they work and live. But men’s lives have
changed remarkably little. Why? Is it because men
AUGUST 2020
don’t want to change? Or is it because, every day
SOCIETY AND CULTURE
in various ways, they are told they shouldn’t?
Imprint: Black Inc. In Men at Work, Annabel Crabb deploys political
RRP: AU$22.99 observation, workplace research and her characteristic
Paperback | 198 × 128mm | 176pp humour and intelligence to argue that gender equity
Manuscript: Available cannot be achieved until men are as free to leave the
Rights held: World ex film/TV workplace (when their lives demand it) as women are
Other rights: Curtis Brown Australia to enter it.
“[A topic that is] crucial for the quality of ANNABEL CRABB is an ABC political writer and
broadcaster. Her books include Losing It, Rise of the
life on the both domestic and work front”
Ruddbot, The Wife Drought and the Quarterly Essay
—Steven Carroll, The Sydney Morning Herald
Stop at Nothing: The Life and Adventures of Malcolm
“An earnest, affable attempt to understand Turnbull, which won a 2009 Walkley Award.
why and how Aussie fathers are
dissuaded . . . from redressing their work–
home balance.”—Beejay Silcox, The
Weekend Australian
“Hands down, it’s the most comprehensive
assessment of Australia’s lack of parental
leave equality to be written”
—Emma Walsh, Women’s Agenda
FIRST EDITION WAS A BLACK INC. BESTSELLER
BL ACK INC . BOOKS LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020 | 16The Shortest History
of Europe
John Hirst
Celebrated historian John Hirst offers a fascinating
exploration of the qualities that made Europe a
world-changing civilisation.
The Shortest History of Europe begins with a rapid
overview of European civilisation, describing its
birth from an unlikely mixture of classical learning,
Christianity and German warrior culture. Over
the centuries, this unstable blend produced highly
distinctive characters – pious knights and belligerent
popes, romantics spouting folklore and revolutionaries
imitating Rome – and its coming apart provided the
dynamic of European history in modern times.
APRIL 2018
HISTORY Accompanied by lively illustrations, The Shortest
History of Europe is a clear, humorous and thought-
Imprint: Black Inc. provoking account of a remarkable civilisation. This
RRP: AU$22.99 new edition brings the story into the present,
Paperback | 198 × 128mm | 192pp covering the world wars and beyond.
Manuscript: Available
JOHN HIRST was a member of the History
Rights held: World; film/TV Department at La Trobe University from 1968 to
Rights sold: Simplified Chinese character 2007. He has written many books on Australian
(Guangxi Normal University Press); history, including Convict Society and Its Enemies, The
Traditional Chinese character (Domain Strange Birth of Colonial Democracy, The Sentimental
Publishing Company); Germany (Hoffmann Nation, Sense and Nonsense in Australian History and
und Campe); Finland (Kustantamo); Greece The Shortest History of Europe.
(Metaichmio Publications); Sweden (Natur
och Kultur); UK/Comm ex ANZ & Canada “An entertaining, learned piece of historical compression”
(Old Street Publishing); Saudi Arabia (Dar —The Age
El Shorouk); Italy (Giunti Editore Spa); “A wise, illuminating little book” —The Sydney Morning
Portugal (Publicacoes Dom Quixote); Spain Herald
(RBA Libros); Turkey (Say Yayinlari); Korea
(Wisdomhouse Publishing Co.); Brazil “Crisp, lucid and evocative” —Australian Book Review
(Editores Sextante); France (City Editions);
Japan (Tokyo Shoseki Co. Ltd.); ANZ &
North America audio (Tantor); Estonia
(Eesti Raamat); Poland (Polskie
RIGHTS SOLD IN TWENTY-ONE TERRITORIES
Wydawnictwo Naukowe); Russian (Eksmo
Publishing); Ukraine (Nash Format) OVER 400,000 COPIES SOLD IN CHINA
BL ACK INC . BOOKS LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020 | 17The Shortest History
of England
James Hawes
With the British Empire gone, Brexit looming and the
break-up of the United Kingdom a possibility, there’s
no better time to discover the true history of England.
In the latest addition to the acclaimed Shortest
History series, James Hawes demonstrates that the
whole sweep of a national story can be captured in
a pacy narrative packed with maps and graphics,
throwing striking new light on the present day.
A gallop through England’s past shows that it is
shot through with ancient fault lines, locked into
European history and overlaid with that most
English of factors: class. The world’s most successful
colonial culture has been rife with tension and
SEPTEMBER 2020 challenge, from the Roman invasion through the
HISTORY
Britons, Anglo-Saxons and Danes; to the Norman
Imprint: Black Inc. Conquest, the Anglo-French Empire and the
RRP: AU$22.99
Reformation; to the Empire and the wars of the
twentieth century; and up to the question-filled
Paperback | 198 × 128pp | 160pp
present.
Manuscript: July 2020
Rights held: ANZ JAMES HAWES is the author of the internationally
Other rights: Old Street Publishing acclaimed and bestselling The Shortest History of
Germany. He has published a biography of Kafka and
Englanders & Huns, the real story of the fatal Anglo-
German antagonism.
Praise for James Hawes
“Absolutely brilliant and utterly infuriating” —The Guardian
“full of enlightening surprises” —The Times
BL ACK INC . BOOKS LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020 | 18The Shortest History of China
Linda Jaivin
China is a much-storied land: the home of the red
dragon; a sleeping lion; the Middle Kingdom, or
‘land between’. For centuries, China led the world
in science, technology, astronomy and maths. The
Chinese invented porcelain, silk, gunpowder and the
magnetic compass, among other things. In the
twentieth century China saw the rise of communism
under Chairman Mao and the bloody Cultural
Revolution – estimated to have resulted in up to
two million deaths.
China today is just as storied: depending on what
you read, it is an economic powerhouse; a beacon of
rapid urbanisation and industrialisation; a top travel
destination filled with cultural and natural beauty;
a secretive political state rife with propaganda; one
NOVEMBER 2020 of the globe’s worst environmental polluters; an
HISTORY aggressive geopolitical player seeking world
domination.
Imprint: Black Inc.
RRP: AU$22.99 As we enter the Asian Century, China – one of the
Paperback | 198 × 128mm | 160pp world’s great superpowers – will become more and
Manuscript: July 2020 more important. Linda Jaivin, an expert in Chinese
Rights held: World ex film/TV
politics, language and culture, distils a vast history
into a short, readable account that tells you what
Other rights: The Naher Agency
you really need to know about the Middle Kingdom,
from its philosophical origins to its political system
Praise for The Empress Lover and where its future is likely to lead.
‘[. . .] Surely this is the novel to gain her a Accessible and entertaining, this is a book you can
reputation as one of Australia’s best and read in an afternoon that will change your view for
most versatile writers.’ —Sara a lifetime.
Dowse, Sydney Morning Herald LINDA JAIVIN is an American-born Australian
“. . . Jaivin skilfully interweaves fact and translator, essayist, novelist and sinologist. She has
written several works of fiction, non-fiction and
fiction, contemporary events with those of
criticism, and writes regularly for The Saturday Paper,
Beijing in 1989 and in 1944, within a
The Monthly and Australian Foreign Affairs.
narrative rich with literary, poetic and
philosophical references.” —South China
Morning Post
BL ACK INC . BOOKS LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020 | 19The Shortest History
of Democracy
John Keane
MARCH 2021 The latest addition to this invaluable series is a very
HISTORY timely distilled history of democracy, which traces it
from its beginning through to its current challenges.
Imprint: Black Inc.
Travelling from Ancient Greece to China, looking
RRP: AU$29.99 closely at Europe and the US, this book explains
Paperback | 198 × 128mm | 192pp how democracy evolved and what is essential to
Manuscript: October 2020; know about it.
sample in June 2020
JOHN KEANE is professor of politics at the University
Rights held: World ex film/TV
of Sydney and at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin
Other rights: AM Heath & Co (WZB), and is the co-founder and director of the
Sydney Democracy Network. Among his many books,
The Life and Death of Democracy was shortlisted for the
2010 Non-Fiction Prime Minister’s Literary Award. It
was the first full-scale history of democracy for over a
century.
The Shortest History of India
John Zubrzycki
India contains multitudes. Every reader will be
grateful for this entertaining yet authoritative
distillation, in which acclaimed popular historian
John Zubrzycki traces India from its beginnings
through to its current challenges. Encompassing
APRIL 2021 north and south, the mountains, desert and coast,
HISTORY religion and culture, this book captures the colour
Imprint: Black Inc. and conflict of a remarkable history.
RRP: AU$29.99 JOHN ZUBRZYCKI is a Sydney-based author,
Paperback | 198 × 128mm | 192pp journalist and researcher, specialising in South Asia, in
Manuscript: November 2020 particular India. His latest book is Empire of Enchantment:
Rights held: World ex film/TV The Story of Indian Magic. He is the best-selling author
Other rights: Curtis Brown Australia of The Last Nizam: An Indian Prince in the Australian
Outback and The Mysterious Mr Jacob: Diamond
Merchant, Magician and Spy.
BL ACK INC . BOOKS LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020 | 20The Winter Road
A Murder at Moree
Kate Holden
An epic true story of greed and malice, power and
revenge, from an acclaimed storyteller.
2014, Moree, New South Wales: Ian Turnbull,
a 79-year-old farmer from a legacy of graziers
stretching back to the area’s settlement, is
embroiled in a legal case sparked by Glen Turner,
an environmental officer who witnesses illegal
land clearing on Turnbull’s property.
When Turnbull apprehends Turner on a road
abutting the property, he stalks him for over twenty
minutes, finally ending his life with a shot in the
back.
The explosive effects of this murder rip through the
NOVEMBER 2020
local community, the courts and all who come into
TRUE CRIME
the story’s orbit. Kate Holden brings her discerning
Imprint: Black Inc. eye to this gripping tale of land, law retribution and
RRP: AU$32.99 clemency.
Paperback | 234 × 153mm | 320pp KATE HOLDEN is the author of two acclaimed
Manuscript: June 2020 memoirs, In My Skin and The Romantic, as well as a
Rights held: World; film/TV regular contributor to The Saturday Paper, The Monthly
and the Fairfax papers.
Praise for In My Skin
“Quite simply in a class of its own.” —The Guardian
“Her story resists the obvious clichés. It confounds and
surprises and challenges preconceived ideas.” —Courier-Mail
“Subtle and elegant” —Kirkus Review
AUTHOR’S PREVIOUS BOOK, IN MY SKIN, WAS
PUBLISHED AROUND THE WORLD IN MULTIPLE
EDITIONS, INCLUDING BRAZIL, CZECH REPUBLIC,
FINLAND, GERMANY, ITALY, NETHERLANDS,
NORTH AMERICA, TURKEY AND THE UK.
BL ACK INC . BOOKS LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020 | 21Car Crash
A Memoir
Lech Blaine
Lech Blaine was just seventeen when he was in a crash
that killed his best friends and changed his life.
On an evening in 2009, seven teenage boys piled
into a car to go to a party. They never arrived. The
driver – who was not drunk or high – made a routine
error and then overcorrected. The vehicle flew off the
road. One passenger died on impact. Others were
flung from the car. Lech walked away uninjured.
In the aftermath, two more died in hospital and one
was left disabled, in an incident that convulsed their
rural community.
Crippled by guilt, Lech turned to social media,
cultivating a persona as the ultimate “grateful
AUGUST 2020 survivor”. Over time, he spiralled into risk-taking
MEMOIR and depression. His public bravado fell away as he
tried to accept how an accident – one wretched
Imprint: Black Inc. error of youth and inexperience – had changed the
RRP: AU$32.99 trajectory of so many lives.
Paperback | 234 × 153mm | 304pp
How do we grieve in an age of social media? How
Manuscript: Available
does tragedy shape a community? And how does a
Rights held: World; film/TV
boy on the cusp of manhood develop a sense of self
when his world has exploded?
This stunning memoir pulls no punches. It marks
Lech Blaine as a writer to watch.
LECH BLAINE is a writer from Toowoomba,
Queensland. His work appears in The Best Australian
Essays, Meanjin, The Guardian and The Monthly, among
others. His work has been nominated for several prizes
and he was an inaugural recipient of a Griffith Review
Queensland Writers Fellowship.
BL ACK INC . BOOKS LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020 | 22Muddy People
Sara El Sayed
A hilarious and heartwarming memoir of growing up
and becoming yourself in an Egyptian Muslim family
In the outer suburbs of Brisbane at the turn of the
millennium, Soos is growing up in an eccentric
family: her Baba, who thinks Islam forbids taking
out life insurance; her Mama, who is plotting
divorce; her Nana, who collects stray dogs and
encourages small lies; her infuriating older brother,
Mohamed, and his white girlfriend; and her can-do-
no-wrong perfect sister, Aisha.
MAY 2021 Soos’ family is muddy. Their skin is brown – kids say
MEMOIR Soos is mud-coloured. Their culture and religion are
puzzling to those around them. In their white-
Imprint: Black Inc.
majority neighbourhood, Soos, Mohamed and Aisha
RRP: AU$32.99
are bullied by racists. Their parents are discriminated
Paperback | 234 × 153mm | 304pp against at work.
Manuscript: December 2020
Rights held: World; film/TV Soos, the baby of the family – her name means
“little tooth” – is working out how to balance her
“As an immigrant to Australia, my parents’ strict rules with having friendships, crushes
developing identity is a constant wrestle and a normal teenage life. With each rule Soos
between resentment and reliance.” comes up against, she is forced to choose between
—Sara El Sayed, Overland doing what her parents say is right and following her
instincts. As her parents’ marriage collapses, and her
dad is diagnosed with leukemia, the cancer cells
clouding his blood, she comes to see her parents as
fallible, with morals based on a muddy logic. But
they are also her strongest defenders.
For readers of Benjamin Law’s The Family Law,
Maxine Beneba Clarke’s The Hate Race and Mishna
Wolff ’s I’m Down, this quick, clever, warm-hearted
book introduces a talented new voice.
SARA EL SAYED was born in Alexandria, Egypt. She
teaches at Queensland University of Technology and is
completing a master of fine arts. Her work features in
the anthologies Growing Up African in Australia and
Arab-Australian-Other, and in publications including
frankie, Overland and The Lifted Brow. Her work was
shortlisted for the 2019 Richell Prize, and she tweets
@sarakelsayed.
BL ACK INC . BOOKS LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020 | 23The Town that Told the Story
160 Years on an Australian Frontier
Dean Ashenden
The story of Tennant Creek is the story of the
Australian frontier. Beginning with a relatively
minor clash between black and white and the
subsequent construction of an apparently benign
telegraph line, the story includes widespread and
deadly violence, the complete dispossession of the
local Aboriginal people, the transformation of
Tennant Creek from telegraph station to gold-rush
town and refugee centre, the installation there of an
apartheid regime (in which Dean Ashenden lived as
a boy), the collapse of that regime in the face of an
Aboriginal rebellion, and Tennant Creek’s descent
into dystopia.
The “second story” is of the struggle – driven by
MARCH 2021
conflict between conscience and conduct, frontier
HISTORY
and post-frontier, black and white – over whether
Imprint: Black Inc. and how these events should be recorded, depicted,
RRP: AU$29.99 and remembered. It includes several of Australia’s
leading anthropologists, land rights claims and a
Paperback | 234 × 153mm | 240pp
key stolen generations case. “Not once, but twice,”
Manuscript: August 2020
Ashenden shows, “poor beaten-down smashed-up
Rights held: World; film/TV Tennant Creek managed to make its struggles into
Australia’s.”
“I left Tennant Creek in 1955, aged 13. What DEAN ASHENDEN has worked as an academic,
I couldn’t understand then was that my family a political adviser, and in journalism. He has written for
had returned from the frontier, the place The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Australian,
that all of Australia has been at one time or Guardian Australia, the Financial Review, Inside Story,
another, and much of it still is.” Meanjin, Crikey, and History Australia. He was a
presenter of ABC Radio National’s Education
—Dean Ashenden
Issues program.
BL ACK INC . BOOKS LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020 | 24LONGLISTED FOR THE STELLA PRIZE 2020 BLACK INC. BESTSELLER
See What You Made Me Do
Power, Control and Domestic Abuse
Jess Hill
Women are abused or killed by their partners at
astonishing rates: in the UK, 1.5 women are killed
each week, and in the US, it’s 2.5 women every day.
In this confronting and deeply researched account,
journalist Jess Hill uncovers the ways in which
abusers exert control in the darkest – and most
intimate – ways imaginable. She asks: What do we
know about perpetrators? Why is it so hard to leave?
What does successful intervention look like?
What emerges is not only a searing investigation
of the violence so many women experience, but a
dissection of how that violence can be enabled and
reinforced by the judicial system we trust to protect us.
MONTH 2018
Combining exhaustive research with riveting
SUBJECTS
storytelling, See What You Made Me Do dismantles
ISBN: the flawed logic of victim-blaming and challenges
Imprint: everything you thought you knew about domestic
AU$ and family violence.
NZ$ JESS HILL is an investigative reporter who contributes
Paperback, size, pp regularly to Radio National’s Background Briefing
and The Monthly. She has reported extensively on
domestic violence and is the recipient of three Our
JUNE 2019 Watch Walkley Awards, including the Gold Award for
SOCIETY AND CULTURE reporting on violence against women.
Imprint: Black Inc.
RRP: AU$32.99
AWARDS INCLUDE: LONGLISTED, 2019 INDIE BOOK
Paperback | 234 × 153mm | 416pp
AWARDS; SHORTLISTED, 2019 VICTORIAN
Manuscript: Available
PREMIER’S LITERARY AWARDS; SHORTLISTED, 2019
Rights held: World; film/TV
WALKLEY BOOK AWARD; FINALIST, 2019 HUMAN
Rights sold: North America (Sourcebooks);
RIGHTS MEDAL FOR THE MEDIA AWARD; A
Hungary (Alexandra Kiado); Russia (Eksmo
READINGS BEST AUSTRALIAN NON-FICTION BOOK
Publishing); UK/Comm ex ANZ (Hurst
OF 2019; LONGLISTED, 2020 STELLA PRIZE
Publishing); Film/TV (Northern Pictures);
UK/Comm audio (Audible); Traditional
Chinese (Sharp Point Press)
BL ACK INC . BOOKS LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020 | 25The Honey Factory
Inside the Ingenious World of Bees
Jürgen Tautz and Diedrich Steen
Beehives might look like seething anarchy at
first glance, but bees know exactly what they are
doing. The universe of the beehive is an intricately
organised, delicately balanced ecosystem. From the
mighty queen to the lowliest worker bees, each bee
plays its part in the whole.
The Honey Factory plunges the reader into the
invisible life of a bee colony and reveals the secrets
of this fascinating world. How do worker bees come
to a collective decision? What does the honeybees’
waggling dance communicate? What provokes the
sexual excesses of the young queen bee? And why is
the precious relationship between humans and bees
a matter of species survival?
SEPTEMBER 2018
ENVIRONMENT Combining the most fascinating scientific discoveries
and greatest secrets in bee research, The Honey Factory
Imprint: Black Inc. answers these questions and more.
RRP: AU$32.99
Paperback | 234 × 153mm | 288pp JÜRGEN TAUTZ is an internationally recognised
expert on bees and professor emeritus at Würzburg
Manuscript: Available
University. Since 2006 he has been in charge of the
Rights held: World English-language
HOneyBee Online Studies (HOBOS) interdisciplinary
Other rights: Random House Germany project. Tautz has authored numerous publications and
“An enriching read for anyone who is moved been awarded several prizes for his work in science
education.
by the secret beauty of our world and who
cares about the future of our ecosystems.” DIEDRICH STEEN is a publishing director. Bees have
—Peter Wohlleben, author of The Hidden been kept in his family for over 100 years, and he has
Life of Trees been an active beekeeper himself for twenty years.
WORLD ENGLISH-LANGUAGE RIGHTS NOW
AVAILABLE
BL ACK INC . BOOKS LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020 | 26On Robyn Davidson
Writers on Writers
Richard Cooke
Robyn Davidson, author of the classic memoir
Tracks, has led a remarkable life of writing and
nomadic travel. In this crisp, erudite essay,
acclaimed critic and journalist Richard Cooke
explores Davidson’s relationship with place and
freedom, and her singular presence in
Australian letters.
In the Writers on Writers series, leading authors
reflect on an Australian writer who has inspired and
fascinated them. Provocative and well-written, these
books start a fresh conversation between past and
present, shed new light on the craft of writing,
MAY 2020
and introduce some intriguing and talented authors
BIOGRAPHY and their work.
The Writers on Writers series is published by Black
Imprint: Black Inc.
Inc. in association with the University of Melbourne
RRP: AU$17.99
and State Library Victoria.
Hardback | 181 × 111mm | 96pp
Manuscript: Available RICHARD COOKE is The Monthly’s US
Rights held: World ex film/TV correspondent and contributing editor. His work
appears in The New York Times, The Best of Longform,
Other rights: The Wylie Agency UK
The Best Australian Essays, The Saturday Paper, The
“Showcase[s] the work of an ascendant Guardian and Australian Foreign Affairs. He is the
talent . . . Cooke has a knack for off-the-cuff current Mumbrella Publish Columnist of the Year, and
anecdotes that gently sidestep into was a finalist in the 2018 Walkley–Pascall Prize for
Arts Criticism.
profundities . . . This is not a particularly
shining portrait of America, but it is
brilliant.” —The Saturday Paper
BL ACK INC . BOOKS LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020 | 27On Beverley Farmer
Writers on Writers
Josephine Rowe
Beverley Farmer’s novels and short stories focused
on loss, migration and homecoming. In this
beautifully hewn essay, fellow novelist and short-
OCTOBER 2020 story writer Josephine Rowe finds a kindred spirit
BIOGRAPHY and argues for a celebration and reclamation of this
long-neglected Australian woman writer.
Imprint: Black Inc.
RRP: AU$17.99 JOSEPHINE ROWE was born in 1984 in
Hardback | 181 × 111mm | 96pp Rockhampton and raised in Melbourne. Her novel,
Manuscript: May 2020
A Loving, Faithful Animal, was longlisted for the Miles
Franklin Literary Award, selected as a New York Times
Rights held: World; film/TV
Editors’ Choice and led to her being named a 2017
Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist. Her
work has appeared widely in Australia and overseas,
including in McSweeney’s, The Best Australian Stories,
Meanjin, The Paris Review Daily and Freeman’s.
On Thomas Keneally
Writers on Writers
STAN GRANT
THOMAS KENEALLY is a prolific Australian novelist,
playwright and essayist. He is best known for writing
Schindler’s Ark, the story of Oskar Schindler’s rescue
MAY 2021 of Jews during the Holocaust, which won the Booker
BIOGRAPHY Prize in 1982
Imprint: Black Inc. STAN GRANT is Indigenous Affairs editor for the
RRP: AU$17.99 ABC and Chair of Indigenous Affairs at Charles
Hardback | 181 × 111mm | 96pp Sturt University. He won the 2015 Walkley Award
Manuscript: December 2020 for coverage of Indigenous Affairs and is the author
of The Tears of Strangers and Talking to My Country.
Rights held: World ex film/TV
Other rights: Curtis Brown Australia
BL ACK INC . BOOKS LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020 | 28Jacinda Ardern
A New Kind of Leader
Madeleine Chapman
The fascinating story of an international icon – one of the
world’s most inspiring, progressive leaders
Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern is
a leader for a new generation, one tired of inertia
in the face of pressing issues such as climate change,
immigration and the rise of far-right terrorism.
Ardern was catapulted onto the international stage
with her grace and compassion following the
Christchurch mosque shooting. Oprah Winfrey
invited us to “channel our inner Jacindas” as praise
for Ardern flooded headlines and social media.
The world’s youngest female head of government,
and only the second elected world leader to give
APRIL 2020 birth while in office, Ardern describes herself as a
BIOGRAPHY progressive and a social democrat. In this revealing
biography, journalist Madeleine Chapman discovers
Imprint: Nero the woman behind the headlines. Politically engaged
RRP: AU$34.99 from an early age, Ardern has encountered her fair
Paperback | 234 × 153mm | 304pp share of sexism, but rather than let that harden her
+ 8pp colour picture section she advocates “rising above” critics. In her first press
Manuscript: Available conference, she announced an election campaign
Rights held: World; film/TV of “relentless positivity”. The tactic was a resounding
Rights sold: Hungary (Alexandra Kiado); success: donations poured in and Labour rebounded
in the polls.
North America (Skyhorse Publishing);
UK/Comm audio (Ulverscroft) But can Ardern live up to her promise? What does
her new style of leadership look like in practice?
And what can we learn from the world’s reaction
to this inspiring leader?
MADELEINE CHAPMAN is the co-author of Steven
Adams’ bestselling autobiography Steven Adams: My
Life, My Fight (Penguin Random House NZ), and a staff
writer at The Spinoff. She was named the 2018 Young
Business Journalist of the Year.
BL ACK INC . BOOKS LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020 | 29The Mutant Project
Inside the Global Race to Genetically
Modify Humans
Eben Kirskey
News of the world’s first “edited” babies broke
in November 2018 from Hong Kong. Chinese
researcher Jiankui He was preparing for an
international summit when reports of his secret
experiment began to leak. Anthropologist Eben
Kirksey was in Hong Kong, speaking at the summit,
as the scientific community reacted to the news with
shock and speculation. Few experts were surprised it
was possible – indeed, earlier studies had shown that
the gene editing tool known as CRISPR works in
human embryos. But Dr He was the first to throw
caution to the wind and implant genetically
modified human embryos into their mothers.
OCTOBER 2020
POPULAR SCIENCE; Gene editing has captured the public imagination.
ANTHROPOLOGY Some hail it as an end to disease, while others
predict wild and creative directions for humanity’s
Imprint: La Trobe University Press future. Based on exclusive access to key actors and
RRP: AU$34.99 materials from Dr He’s lab, The Mutant Project is one
Paperback | 234 × 153mm | 336pp of the first books to be published on this subject. The
Manuscript: May 2020; sample available now story moves from the centres of biotech innovation
Rights held: UK/Comm in China, the United States and England to the
Other rights: North America (St Martin’s
experimental zones of Thailand and Indonesia.
Thoughtful and thrilling, The Mutant Project
Press); translation and film/TV (Janklow &
examines the politics, ethics and economics of gene
Nesbit Associates)
therapies, and the scientists, lobbyists, entrepreneurs
and activists remaking the human race.
EBEN KIRKSEY is an expert on science and justice.
His writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Sunday
Times, The Atlantic and Wired. He is a member of the
Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and an
associate professor of anthropology at Deakin
University, Melbourne. Kirksey is author of Freedom
in Entangled Worlds and Emergent Ecologies.
AUTHOR WAS A MARSHALL SCHOLAR AT
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY, AND HAS BEEN A
COLUMNIST FOR THE GUARDIAN, NEW STATESMAN,
THE SUNDAY TIMES
BL ACK INC . BOOKS LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020 | 30Contest for the Indo-Pacific
Why China Won’t Map the Future
Rory Medcalf
The Indo-Pacific is both a place and an idea. It is
the region central to global prosperity and security.
It is also a metaphor for collective action. If
diplomacy fails, it will be the theatre of the first
general war since 1945. But if its future can be
secured, the Indo-Pacific will flourish as a shared
space, the centre of gravity in a connected world.
What we call different parts of the world – Asia,
Europe, the Middle East – seems innocuous. But
the name of a region is totemic: a mental map
that guides the decisions of leaders and the story
of international order, war and peace. In recent
years, the label “Indo-Pacific” has gained wide use,
including among the leaders of the United States,
India, Japan, Australia, Indonesia and France.
But what does it really mean?
Written by a recognised expert and regional policy
insider, Contest for the Indo-Pacific is the definitive
guide to tensions in the region. It deftly weaves
together history, geopolitics, cartography, military
strategy, economics, games and propaganda to
address a vital question: how can China’s dominance
be prevented without war?
RORY MEDCALF is a professor and Head of the
MARCH 2020 National Security College at the Australian National
FOREIGN AFFAIRS University. His experience as an Australian diplomat
includes postings to New Delhi, Tokyo and Papua New
Imprint: La Trobe University Press Guinea. He was a senior strategic analyst in Australia’s
RRP: AU$32.99 peak intelligence agency, the Office of National
Paperback | 234 × 153mm | 320pp Assessments and was the founding director of the
Manuscript: Available international security program at the Lowy Institute.
Rights held: World; film/TV He has been published widely, including in The New York
Rights sold: World English-language ex ANZ
Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, The
Economist, The South China Morning Post and The Hindu,
(Manchester University Press); Traditional
as well as on the ABC, BBC and CNN.
Chinese (Business Weekly Publications)
BL ACK INC . BOOKS LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020 | 31You can also read
