January February 2014

The French rights for Gerald Murnane's novels Barley Patch and Tamarisk Row have been sold toBuchet/Castel (a subsidiary of Libella). More information to come.

Barley Patch, published in 2009 by Giramondo, was Murnane's first new work of fiction for fourteen years. It has since been published in the USA by Dalkey Archive Press (2011) and in Sweden (2012) as Korntappa. The book begins with the question, Must I write? What follows is a remarkable account of the images that have appeard in the author's mind during a career of over thirty years as a reader and writer. Murnane creates an enchanting chronicle of the world in his mind through the stories he weaves around these images. His first book, Tamarisk Row, was described in Nation Review as the best novel to have appeared in Australia for many years.

Barley Patch107150 UWA Publishing (University of Western Australia) have bought the rights to Doris Brett’s next book, The Twelfth Raven which will be published this year. The Twelfth Raven is a literary journey through a series of life-threatening health crises involving two of the leading causes of death and disability in Australia - heart disease and stroke. The Age reported on 3 November 2012 that there are about 350,000 Australians living with stroke. Most of the book is written from the point of view of the carer (Doris' husband, Martin was the patient), but to round things off, in the final section, Doris becomes the patient again as she is diagnosed with the faulty BrCa gene (which gives a lifetime 87% chance of developing breast cancer and a 40% chance of ovarian cancer) and opts to have a preventative mastectomy and reconstruction. This section as well as resonating with the many thousands of women having mastectomies in Australia also opens up the area which a growing number of people are having to address - medical science's increased ability to detect faulty genes and the difficult issues of what to do about them.

Robyn Bavati’s second novel, Pirouette was published by Flux in the USA November 2013 and by Penguin Books in Australia in January. Pirouette US sm Adopted as babies by two different families, Simone and Hannah have never known they are identical twins. Simone has been raised as a dancer, but she hates performing. Hannah loves nothing more than dance, but her parents see it as just a hobby. When the two girls meet for the first time at the age of fifteen, they decide to swap places to change the role dance plays in their lives. Yet fooling their friends and family is more challenging than either girl expected, and they're both burdened by the weight of their lies.

How long can Hannah and Simone keep pretending? What will happen when the truth is revealed?

Robyn's first novel, Dancing in the Dark was published by Penguin Books in February 2010 and in the USA by Flux in February 2013.