Canongate Acquires Michel Faber's THE BOOK OF STRANGE NEW THINGS and Anne Donovan's GONE ARE THE LEAVES

Canongate has acquired The Book of Strange New Things, a new novel from Michel Faber. It is his first in more than a decade, since the publication of the hugely-acclaimed international bestseller, The Crimson Petal and the White international bestseller The Crimson Petal and the White. Francis Bickmore, Canongate's Publishing Director acquired world rights direct from the author.

The Book of Strange New Things opens with a man saying goodbye to his wife before setting out on a perilous journey as a Christian missionary. It is an unexpected and wildly original novel about adventure, faith and the ties that might hold two people together when they are worlds apart.

Bickmore says:

'This momentous novel is Faber at his expectation-defying best. It is a brilliantly compelling book about love in the face of death, and the search for meaning in an unfathomable universe. Readers won't have encountered anything quite like it before.'

Canongate will publish in hardback in November 2014.

The film adaptation of Faber's first novel, Under the Skin, is due for UK release on 14 March 2014. Directed by Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast, Birth) and starring Scarlett Johansson, the film has already garnered critical acclaim following premiers at Venice, Toronto and London International Film Festivals. This follows the release in 2011 of The Crimson Petal and the White as a four part BBC mini-series starring Romola Garai, Gillian Anderson, Richard E Grant and Chris O'Dowd. The series received much prize attention, including two BAFTA nominations.

Jo Dingley, Assistant Editor at Canongate, has acquired Gone Are the Leaves, a new novel from Glasgow-based author Anne Donovan. Dingley acquired world rights from Gill Coleridge at Rogers, Coleridge and White, and Canongate will publish in April 2014.

Canongate published Donovan's debut novel Buddha Da in 2003, which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize and the Whitbread First Novel Award and won the Scottish Book of the Year Award, as well as being nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Canongate also published her collection of short stories Hieroglyphics, and her second novel Being Emily, both to critical acclaim.

Set in the medieval past Gone Are the Leaves tells the story of Feilamort and Deirdre, two friends living in the home of a Scottish laird and his French wife. When the time comes for Feilamort to make an awful decision, his choice catapults himself and Deirdre head-first into adulthood, with unimaginable consequences.

Dingley says: 'Anne Donovan is completely unique, and a new novel from her is always a major literary event. Gone Are the Leaves is full of the wonder, grace and charm for which her writing is so beloved. It is a truly enchanting story with echoes of Celtic myth and Arthurian legend.'

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'This is a man who could give Conrad a run at writing the perfect sentence' Guardian

'There is no choice but to give in to this most unbelievably pleasurable of narrative rides' The Times

'The fantastic is so nicely played against the day-to-day that one feels the strangeness of both . . . A remarkable novel' New York Times

'Anne Donovan is to be cherished.' - Times Literary Supplement

'Her deliciously corkscrewed tale flows with the sap of everyday life.' - The Sunday Times on Buddha Da

'A tender, lyrical coming-of-age narrative, its people drawn with love in that singing Glasgow voice

that is Donovan's signature.' - The Guardian on Being Emily