Castagna’s ‘No More Boats’ sold into North America

Giramondo has sold North American rights to Felicity Castagna’s No More Boats to Europa Editions editor-in-chief Michael Reynolds in a pre-empt, via Rach Crawford at literary agency MacKenzie Wolf.

The Miles Franklin-shortlisted novel tells the story of an Italian-Australian immigrant family whose unravelling lives collide with the refugee crisis.

Reynolds called the book ‘moving, original and important’. ‘No More Boats not only tells a gripping family story, it directly addresses issues that, in America, we are grappling with as never before it seems—immigration, xenophobia, protectionism, racism, media manipulation, unchecked urban property development, the precariousness of the working poor. These subjects are being addressed in nonfiction and journalism but there is as yet little fiction addressing the current state of affairs. It is going to take time for American writers to digest the current moment and address it in their fiction, and I hope that No More Boats will be a book with which their books will be in dialogue for many years to come.’

Giramondo commissioning editor Nick Tapper, said he was ‘delighted’ that Castagna’s book will be brought to the North American market. ‘As an independent publisher committed to outstanding literary work, Europa is a publisher with which we feel a natural affinity at Giramondo. No More Boats is an important book, and a deeply Australian one, but its themes resonate with anxieties about borders, and the political situation for refugees and migrant families, around the world.’

No More Boats is scheduled for US release in February 2019.

Category: Local news Rights and acquisitions