UQP to publish Booker-longlisted Pearl by Siân Hughes

UQP is delighted to announce that we have acquired ANZ rights to the Booker-longlisted Pearl by Siân Hughes. The 2023 Booker Prize judges said of this stunning work: ‘Pearl, an exceptional debut novel, is both a mystery story and a meditation on grief … The degree of difficulty in writing a book of this sort – at once quiet and hugely ambitious – is very high.’

Pearl tells the story of Marianne, whose mother disappears when she is eight years old. Left behind with her baby brother and grieving father in a ramshackle house on the edge of a small village, she clings to the fragmented memories of her mother’s love, the games they played, and the songs and stories of her childhood. Marianne is haunted by this loss throughout her life, especially when she becomes a mother herself. Pearl is a gripping psychological mystery, one that ultimately considers how art and storytelling can heal us.

UQP acquired ANZ rights from Susie Nicklin at Indigo Press UK and will publish our edition of Pearl on 12 September 2023. US rights were secured by John Freeman at Knopf US.

Publisher Aviva Tuffield says:

‘Pearl hooked me from the first page with its plangent and intriguing voice. It’s an exceptional, mesmerising novel that deals with themes of grief and memory in a captivating and profound way. Pearl does what the best fiction should – it indelibly connects us to its characters. I know ANZ readers are going to fall in love with Siân Hughes’ debut.’

Susie Nicklin, publisher at Indigo Press:

‘I’m delighted that the judges of the Booker Prize 2023 have longlisted Pearl by Siân Hughes. It is a gem of a novel; ambitious, tautly crafted, a psychological thriller with a dazzling ending, rooted in the Cheshire countryside and full of local songs, poems and folklore. It tackles difficult and important contemporary themes with a lightness of touch.’

About Siân Hughes

Siân Hughes is a writer who grew up in a small village in Cheshire where the story of Pearl is set. Returning to live there after her mother’s death, she borrowed from the medieval poem ‘Pearl’ to write a story set in an old house she cycled past every day as a child. Her first collection of poetry, The Missing, won the Seamus Heaney Award, was shortlisted for the Felix Dennis and Aldeburgh prizes, and was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. Pearl is her debut novel.

For more information please contact Sally Wilson on sally.wilson@uqp.com.au or 07 3346 7932