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Transatlantic Literary Agency Announces
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The Selector of Souls
by Shauna Singh Baldwin
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Dear Friends,
I am thrilled to announce a very special new client, award-winning and internationally bestselling author, Shauna Singh Baldwin, whose sensational new novel The Selector of Souls was bought by Anne Collins, Publisher of Knopf Canada for publication in September 2012. See below for the synopsis, publishing history and acclaim.
World rights ex: English Canada are available. The edited manuscript will be ready for consideration shortly. Please contact me with your requests at sam@tla1.com and my associate Meghan Macdonald will respond with submissions.
The Selector of Souls will be a lead fiction title for us at the upcoming London Book Fair with Meghan Macdonald & Shaun Bradley attending this year.
I look forward to hearing from you soon and introducing you to this powerful and touching story, which will surely resonate with readers everywhere.
All best wishes,
Samantha
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Synopsis
A richly imagined, fierce and fascinating new novel by bestselling, award-winning author Shauna Singh Baldwin. Set in India, it's her first in seven years, and hotly anticipated.
The Selector of Souls begins with a scene that is terrifying, harrowing and yet strangely tender: we're in the mid-ranges of the Himalayas as a young woman gives birth to her third child, a baby girl, with the help of her mother, Damini. The birth brings no joy, just a horrible accounting, and the act that follows - the huge sacrifice made by Damini out of love for her daughter - haunts the novel.
In Shauna Singh Baldwin's deeply imagined, enthralling work, two fascinating, strong-willed women deal with the relentless logic forced upon them for survival: Damini, a Hindu midwife, and Anu, who flees an abusive marriage for the sanctuary of the Catholic church. When Sister Anu comes to Gurkot village to open a clinic, their paths cross, each certain they are doing what's best for women. But what do survival, health, education, justice, equality and human rights mean to girls, women and the low caste when a country is marching toward prosperity, growth and nuclearization? If baby girls and women around them are to survive, Damini and Anu must find creative ways to break their sustaining traditions, and change this community from within.
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Shauna Singh Baldwin
Shauna Singh Baldwin was born in Montreal and grew up in India. The Tiger Claw, her second novel, was a finalist for the Giller Prize in 2004. Her first, What The Body Remembers, published in 1999, was longlisted for the Orange Prize and was awarded the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for Best Book in the Canada/Caribbean region. It has been translated into 14 languages. She is also the author of English Lessons and Other Stories (1996), the collection We Are Not In Pakistan (2007), and coauthor of A Foreign Visitor's Survival Guide to America. Her short stories have won literary awards in the United States, Canada and India. She holds an MFA from the University of British Columbia and an MBA from Marquette University in Milwaukee, where she currently lives with her husband. More reviews and interviews at www.ShaunaSinghBaldwin.com |
Praise for Shauna Singh Baldwin
Formidable...a sumptuous tour of that rich and poor, calms and chaotic country...a sweeping story... In What the Body Remembers, with her sharp focus on women in such turmoil, Baldwin offers us a moving and engaging look at twentieth-century India's most troubled years. The New York Times Book Review
A captivating jewel of a novel by a seasoned and sophisticated writer...Beyond being a compelling tale of individuals, What The Body Remembers offers a gimlet-eyed view of a pluralistic society's disintegration into factionalism and anarchy. The Washington Post
I very much admired the strength and control with which the author keeps her complex story going, and at the same time keeps it clear, and true to the spirit of India. Penelope Fitzgerald
An epic of heartbreak and honour set in Northwest India in the dying light of the Raj... Painstakingly researched, its characters frankly convincing, and set against a rich backdrop of gods, politics and tradition, this novel earned its Montreal-born author the Commonwealth Writers Prize 2000 for Best Book in Canada and the Caribbean. National Post
The Tiger Claw is a first rate spy thriller and also first rate literature. Set in the 40s in Occupied Paris with haunting similarities to the world today, this is a novel that reminds us that sometimes only fiction can really tell us the truth...The story of one woman's courage in the face of racism, betrayal and hypocrisy on one hand and the evils of war on the other. It is also a love story between Muslim and Jew told in a language that resonates with mysticism and romance -- yet it is brutally honest in its assessment of motives and ambiguities. Giller Prize Judges
The Tiger Claw brilliantly reveals the shifting sands of allegiance in times of war and the duplicity required for survival when all who are operating underground are interdependent but no one can be trusted fully.
The Gazette (Montreal)
We Are Not in Pakistan transmits the new world order... The prose has a slow, molten rhythm . . . Baldwin is asking, "What is home? What is citizenship?" . . .she becomes her characters . . . . a pitch perfect dreamscape. We Are Not in Pakistan is that book that shakes up the prettiness of much of the Canlit landscape. It wants to be global, and in this it succeeds. Globe and Mail
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Publishing History
We Are Not in Pakistan: stories
(Goose Lane Editions, Canada 2007, Rupa India 2009)
The Tiger Claw: a novel (Knopf Canada, Sept 2004, Penguin India 2005, De Geus, Holland 2005) 5th printing
What the Body Remembers: a novel (Nan Talese/Doubleday U.S.A.; Knopf Canada - 12th printing; Transworld, UK; Editions du Seuil, France; Bertelsmann, Germany; Psichogios, Greece; Editorial Anagrama, Spain; Keter, Israel; Uitgeverij De Geus, Holland; Mondadori Editore, Italy; Prószynski I Ska, Poland; Enciclopedia Catalana, Spain; Epsilon Yayincilik, Turkey; Prosoretz Publications Bulgaria 1999-2006; Goose Lane Between the Covers Audio 2000, Sirius Satellite Radio, 2008, Rupa India 2011).
English Lessons and Other Stories (Goose Lane, 1996 - 3rd printing; Harper Collins India 1999; Rupa India 2009; FB Etzione Italy 2006). A Foreign Visitor's Survival Guide to America (John Muir Publications 1992, Coauthor).
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Samantha J. Haywood, Transatlantic Literary Agency Inc. 2 Bloor Street East, Suite 3500 Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4W 1A8 Canada Tel.: 416-488-9214 Fax: 416-929-3174www.tla1.com http://twitter.com/TransLitAgency |
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