French architect-cum-literary-phenom
Marc Levy hits the charts in both France and
Italy with his second novel, Will You Be There?,
a “treat of simplicity and emotion” that delves into
the rendez-vous manqués between lovelorn Americans
Philip and Susan, after the latter packs her bags for
a humanitarian-aid sojourn in Honduras while Philip
toils in New York. Their flame begins to gutter as the
sweethearts swap epistles (plus a few furtive assignations
in Newark airport), and rush headlong into battle against
“the many enemies who push us each day a little more
towards loneliness.” The author’s blockbuster first
novel, If Only It Were True, was sold in 31 territories,
including Germany (Aufbau), the UK (Fourth
Estate), and the US (Pocket). That title,
about a San Francisco medical student who ends up in
a coma and wrangles a date with her boy-toy via astral
projections, is up to 900,000 copies in the US, while
Dreamworks is at work on the film, having done
some astral projection itself in a $2 million deal said
to be the highest price ever paid for film rights to
a French book. More than 200,000 copies of the new one
have been sold in France, with rights sold in Germany
(Droemer had the winning bid) and on submission
in the UK (as Levy’s editor at Fourth Estate, Arabella
Stein, is no longer there). US rights to the new
one are open; see agent Susanna Lea.
Plying
a similar theme in France is a first novel from Anna
Gavalda, I Loved Her, chronicling the affair
between a young rejected mother and her retired executive
father-in-law. As the French Vogue put it, “These
losers in love sound just right.” The book sold 85,000
copies in the first two weeks alone, and rights have
been sold in Germany (Hanser), Spain (Seix
Barral), and Greece (Astarti), among other
nations. Gavalda’s earlier collection of stories, by
the way, was called I’d Like Someone to Wait for
Me Somewhere and has now sold 510,000 copies in
French, with rights sold in 19 languages — though neither
title has been sold in the US or the UK. See Lucinda
Karter at the French Publishers Agency for
US rights, or Claude Tarrène at Dilettante
for the UK.
Finally
in France, Someone Else by the sharp-witted Tonino
Benacquista follows the repartee of two guys who
get drunk together in a bar and promise to hook up again
in three years to find out if their booze-fueled dreams
have come to pass. Out of the fog of the next morning’s
headache, each of them embarks on a separate yet parallel
journey to become someone else. Benacquista — a novelist
who presumably has an advanced degree in tending bar
— made a splash with his earlier work Saga, which
takes sarcastic aim at the dissolute lives of four TV
screenwriters and was published in a number of nations
including Germany, Italy, and China. No rights to the
new one have as yet been sold. Talk to Anne-Solange
Noble at Gallimard.
Of potentially
combustible interest in Israel, Sayed Qashu’s
first novel Dancing Arabs has hit the list with
its “biting and illuminating satire” about the travails
of Arab intellectuals living in Israel. This quasi-autobiographical
novel — “written by someone who has nothing to lose”
— busts open the conceit of “national identity” as it
follows an Arab who attends a high school for gifted
students in Jerusalem, and “scrolls through the Israeli
Arabs’ desire to belong” with scabrous honesty. The
27-year-old author is an Israeli-Arab journalist who
writes for a Tel Aviv weekly, and rights have been sold
in Holland (Vassallucci), with submissions under
way in France, Italy, Germany, and the US. See the Harris/Elon
agency for rights. Also in Israel, the New York–born
author Michal Shalev’s A Hundred Winters
has been gripping readers with its family saga tracing
six generations across the tide of 19th- and 20th-century
history. The “spellbinding” tableau kicks off with 16-year-old
Fanny, a young Jewish woman from a small village near
Warsaw, who bucks tradition and bolts for the Polish
hinterlands. The author’s second work, Rachel’s Vow,
sold 90,000 copies, and the new one has sold more than
70,000 (though it has slipped off the list this month).
The author controls foreign rights, and is seeking representation
in the US and UK. Email mshalev@hotmail.co.il.
In Poland,
Katarzyna Grochola’s emphatic second novel Never
Again! comes off a streak as “the biggest Polish
bestseller of 2001” and follows a 37-year-old heroine
who embarks on a new life after being ditched by her
hubby. Things turn rosy as she raises a kid and scores
a winning career as a journalist — call it Poland’s
Bridget Jones. The book, which is the first in
a series called Frogs and Angels, has sold 70,000
copies in Poland, with rights sold to Russia (ATS)
and Germany (Heyne). A second title in the series
is due out imminently. Contact Beata Stasinska
at Wydawnictwo.
An update
reaches us from Norway, which is abuzz over Lars
Saabye Christensen’s novel The Half Brother
(see PT 10/01), which was just awarded the Nordic
Council’s Literary Prize (they like to call it the
“Nordic Nobel Prize”). With all the brouhaha, sales
are up to 60,000 copies in hardcover (plus 93,000 in
a book club edition). This “formidable, luxuriant work”
about two brothers in ’60s Oslo was published in October,
with rights now sold to nine countries, including Germany
(Bertelsmann) and the UK (Arcadia). Contact
Eirin Hagen at Cappelen.
In Greece,
Zyranna Zateli returns from a seven-year hiatus
with the imposing title Under the Strange Name of
Ramanthis Erevous: Death Came Last. The novel takes
place in the late 1950s in northern Greece, and traces
the history of five siblings who all die prematurely
of suspicious causes — fates that are linked to a 13-year-old
boy bearing “secret gifts and troubles.” Zateli’s earlier
title, By the Light of the Wolf, was published
in Germany (Kiepenheuer & Witsch), Italy
(Crocetti), and France (Seuil), among
other nations, and won Greece’s National Book Prize
in 1993. Rights to the new one have been sold thus far
to Italy (Crocetti); see Maria Fakinou at Kastaniotis.
Finally in Greece, we take note of the tearful Goodbye
Drachma, a bestselling sendoff for one of the oldest
currencies in the world (and yet another casualty of
the euro). Author Othon Tsounakos presents an
illustrated history of the drachma and has “touched
sensitive reading chords” around the globe. Some 60,000
copies have been sold thus far, and publisher Iliotropio
would be tickled to secure representation for this title
in the Greek language and elsewhere. See Iliotropio
Marketing Manager John Arfanis.
