As we near the end of the year, the Pontas Agency wants to reflect on the milestones that shaped 2024, celebrating achievements and looking forward to new challenges and opportunities to come in 2025.
To start, a historic first for the Pontas Agency and a huge accomplishment for Congolese author Fiston Mwanza Mujila, whose second novel, The Villain’s Dance (La danse du villain) was selected as a finalist for the prestigious National Book Award for Translated Literature in the US, alongside four other titles. Originally published in French with Éditions Metailié in 2020, the English translation of The Villain’s Dance (La Danse Du Vilain) by Roland Glasser was published in the US with Deep Vellum in March 2024. Check all rights sold here.
In other prize news, Minnesota-based Zambian writer and poet Mubanga Kalimamukwento's second novel Shipikisha was chosen as the winner of the 2024 Dzanc Prize for Fiction and will be published by Dzanc Books in the US and by Jacana Media in South Africa in March 2026. French rights were pre-empted by Editions de L’Aube. It was selected from a pool of hundreds of manuscripts and judged by three celebrated Dzanc Books authors, including Sarah Yahm (Unfinished Acts of Wild Creation), winner of the 2023 Dzanc Prize for Fiction.
Two Pontas clients had best-selling book launches this fall: Spanish author Dolores Redondo with her highly anticipated follow-up to Awaiting the Flood, Those Who Don’t Sleep NASH (Las que no duermen NASH) (published simultaneously in Spanish and Catalan) and Catalan author Martí Gironell with his newest novel Treasure Mountain (La muntanya del tresor).
Those Who Don’t Sleep NASH was an immediate Spanish #1 bestseller upon publication and is still currently at #1 over a month later! In Catalan, Those Who Don’t Sleep NASH and Treasure Mountain have both been #1 and #2 Catalan bestsellers and continue to share the top 2 spots on the chart as we head towards the end of the year!
Pontas authors' books receiving critical acclaim this year include Fiston Mwanza Mujila’s The Villain’s Dance (La danse du villain), Musih Tedji Xaviere’s These Letters End in Tears, and Mubanga Kalimamukwento’s Obligations to the Wounded who were all included in Brittle Paper's "Notable African Books of 2024" list. Every year, Brittle Paper strives to highlight the most impactful African books to show the world the wealth of literary expression coming from African authors and introduce readers to works from under-represented parts of the continent. Obligations to the Wounded, a collection of short stories that won the 2024 Drue Heinz Literature Prize was also chosen as a Debutiful Best Book of 2024 and all rights are handled by University of Pittsburgh Press in this case.
In audiovisual news this year we are so pleased to see Elvira Mínguez’s debut novel, Earth’s Shadow (La sombra de la tierra), originally published by Espasa Calpe in 2023 reach the screen in the form of a 4-episode TV miniseries, written and directed by the author herself. The Atresmedia TV production premiered at the prestigious 2024 San Sebastián Film Fest and it aired on the Spanish platform Atresplayer on November 24th 2024. You can watch the trailer here. Seeing an adaptation reach the screens is always a dream come true.
In view of the recent news in Syria, French novelist and journalist (deputy head of the foreign news service at French broadsheet Libération, specialist on the Middle East) Camille Neveux’s debut novel published in March 2024 by JC Lattès is more relevant and urgent than ever. An Orchard in Damascus (Le verger de Damas) traces over three generations the destiny of a Syrian family from Daraya, in the southern suburbs of Damascus, from the 1990s to the present day, under Hafez then Bashar El-Assad, inspired by the story of her husband’s family. The novel was widely acclaimed in the press and the author has made many appearances on national TV in recent days on C ce soir (France 5) and En société (France 5).
As the ongoing invasion of Ukraine continues, Mexican author and human rights activist Lydia Cacho focused on that area of the world to write her latest work: a middle grade novel set on the fictional planet of Ukrai, about the current war in Ukraine: The Day They Invaded My Planet (El día que invadieron mi planeta). The author travelled to Ukraine just a few weeks into the Russian invasion to speak to local children about their current lives and experience. Thinking back, she says: "All wars are unjust; they leave behind devastation, helplessness, poverty, and exile. Children are always the most affected victims, as we have seen in recent days with clarity in Palestine or as we’ve seen before in Syria, Sudan, Congo, Afghanistan, and Iraq, to name a few countries that annihilate girls and boys to destroy a nation or an ethnic group.”
Last but not least, this year French journalist, documentary-maker and crime author Olivier Truc wrote about the pressing and timely issues of global energy needs and continued mining in the Lapland region and the increasing difficulty of protecting both the environment and Indigenous peoples' rights in the keenly awaited last instalment of his Reindeer Police series, The First Reindeer (Le Premier Renne), which was finally published in August with Éditions Métailié, as a lead fall title (French rentrée littéraire).
Watch this space for news about upcoming books in 2025. We can't wait to see what next year will bring.
Happy New Year!
For more information about any of the above titles, please contact Anna Soler-Pont (anna@pontas-agency.com).