What a year it’s been so far! Before our annual break we want to look back at some of the original-language titles by Pontas authors that have been published during these first months of 2024 to continue to celebrate them.
The year started with Mayte Uceda’s El Maestro de Azúcar (The Sugar Master), a historical page-turner set in 19th-century Cuba where a trailblazing female doctor will have to confront the harsh realities of life on the Dos Hermanos plantation, where dark secrets and a brewing slave rebellion threaten to upend her future. It was published in the original Spanish by Editorial Planeta and is currently on its 5th reprint! Translation rights have been sold into French (Hauteville/Bragelonne), Russian (Azbooka-Atticus), and Slovenian (HKZ). Audiovisual rights also sold, TBA. All other translation rights are currently available.
The first volume of La bande de l’abribus series (The Bus Stop Mystery Club series) by French author Luce Michel was also published in January by Black Lab/Hachette Livre and it follows a group of four friends who meet as patients at the private Three Saints clinic. When dead bodies start turning up in the beautiful countryside, the carefully cultivated peacefulness advertised by the clinic is shattered… All translation and audiovisual rights are currently available.
In the foto below, Luce Michel (left) and fellow Pontas author Camille Neveux (right) in person at a book festival in early May, in the coastal town of Hyères, in the south of France. They were both promoting their recently published novels. Le verger de Damas (An Orchard in Damascus) by Camille Neveux was published in April by JC Lattès and Italian rights have been sold to Tre60! It is a fascinating novel, sitting at the crossroads of the personal and the political, which traces the destiny of three generations of a Syrian family with a secret at its heart, set against the Damascus protests that were seen on newsfeeds the world over. All other translation and audiovisual rights are also available.
Els dies robats (The Stolen Days) by Catalan author Blanca Busquets was also published earlier this year. The novel is set in an isolated village in the Catalan Pyrenees, where a group of strangers confront their pasts and personal secrets during a yoga and Pilates retreat, while the COVID-19 pandemic forces them to forge unexpected connections that will change their lives forever. Blanca Busquets’ novels are always highly acclaimed by the Catalan public and she signed copies during Sant Jordi, the celebration of World Book Day that took place in Barcelona on April 23rd. All translation and audiovisual rights are currently available.
In March, the world finally got to meet the characters in Cameroonian author’s Musih Tedji Xaviere’s debut novel, These Letters End In Tears, which was published in March by Catapult in the USA, Jacaranda in the UK, and Masobe Books in Nigeria. This powerful debut about love and the complexities and dangers of prejudice was one of the joint winners of the Pontas & JJ Bola Emerging Writers Prize 2021 and we are proud to finally see it published! Translation rights have been sold into Danish (Klim), Italian (Astoria), and Dutch (Orlando), and all other translation and audiovisual rights are currently available.
March also brought the publication of French author Benjamin Carteret’s debut novel, Perséphone, a dual-voiced retelling of the famous myth by Kore/Persephone and her mother, Demeter, by Charleston/Leduc. Although set during Antiquity and faithful to the traditions of classical mythology, the novel explores the universal, urgent questions of motherhood, patriarchy, freedom and humankind’s relationship to the environment; in short, a myth for our times. French paperback rights were snapped up by Livre de Poche and all translation and audiovisual rights are currently available.
Last but not least, two books from two of the author estates that we represent at Pontas were also published during this first half of 2024. Bromera released a new Catalan edition of the contemporary classic La Salvatge (The Wild One) by the late Isabel-Clara Simó, 30 years after its original publication. Watch this space, because the UK-based publisher 3TimesRebel Press will be bringing this book to an English-language audience for the first time very soon.
Ramón Lobo, the late renowned journalist and war correspondent, left a finished manuscript when he passed, which was published by Península in June under the title Pensión Lobo: Room 13. The book is a very personal and intimate chronicle full of reflections about the life he lived, and accepting death, and illness. A real tear-jerker to remember the author by.
In audiovisual news, we wanted to highlight that the French TV series adapting Dolores Redondo’s internationally-bestselling, Planeta Prize-winning novel Todo esto te daré (All This I Will Give to You), premiered in February on France 2, the public French TV channel. The series had started shooting a year earlier, in March 2023, in the Bouches-du-Rhône region, in the south of France, which the author has visited to meet the cast and crew. It was an instant hit!
We’re looking forward to what the second half of 2024 will bring, stay tuned!
For more information on any of the above titles, please contact Anna Soler-Pont (anna@pontas-agency.com).