NP but Abdulrazak Gurnah. I think it must be said that he sold so few in the US, despite a publisher's commitment and prestige awards

[Mark Kohut]

because he was black. I saw it all the time when I was active.
Tidbit from that novel he is holding, published in 2020. A German officer,
the one who has
taken our protagonist as his servant boy, frustrated as the war turns, asks
him rhetorically Why he came
here [ East Africa] instead of staying home? [Zanzibar implicity] and then
snaps, "And why did I ever come to this shithole
country."
I suggest Gurnah would never have used that word if Trump had not.

Riverhead is going to do for him what Sonny Mehta did for Cormac McCarthy,
maybe, AND THIS IS THE START OF IT! A story on
the unavailability of this genius so he can be relaunched next year! Just
like the annual pumpkin shortage cries sells all the pumpkins out.
 (I would still like to know why so long into next year? Could
have been sooner. I think I know some things that came up at the
marketing/publishing meeting and some of them are still wrong---like
not a summer book? But they are smart at Riverhead so they have reasons.
One has to be long lead time magazines for those profiles of him and his
work.
Another to be the big dog book in a month without as many new books
(vacations all around, esp reviewers and publicists who will have had lots
of time)

When Sonny Mehta launched McCarthy into bestsellerdown it was with this PR
campaign: The best American novelist 'no one has read' "you have never
read", etc.  (at least three earlier books, all praised,
no sales to speak of) I saw it in three magazines/papers at least.

The best Nobelist you had never even heard of, much less read.   Who writes
in English about major culturally rising themes!    All his creative life
has been BLACK LIVES MATTER.

He Won the Nobel. Why Are His Books So Hard to Find?

After Abdulrazak Gurnah was awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature,
he instantly gained a wider international audience, something publishers
are now scrambling to accommodate.

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[image: “Afterlives,” Abdulrazak Gurnah’s latest novel, will be published
by Riverhead in the United States next year.]
“Afterlives,” Abdulrazak Gurnah’s latest novel, will be published by
Riverhead in the United States next year.Credit...Henry Nicholls/Reuters

By Alexandra Alter <https://www.nytimes.com/by/alexandra-alter>
Oct. 27, 2021

When Abdulrazak Gurnah released his 10th book, “Afterlives,” last year, his
editor was sure it would become his first major best seller. For more than
three decades, he had drawn stellar reviews but never gained a large
readership.

“I have felt there’s a much bigger audience for him out there,” said
Alexandra Pringle, executive publisher of Bloomsbury, who has worked with
Gurnah for more than 20 years. “I thought, ‘This is it, this is going to be
his moment.’”

“Afterlives,”
<https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/sep/30/afterlives-by-abdulrazak-gurnah-review-living-through-colonialism>
 which explores the brutality of Germany’s colonial rule in East Africa,
came out in Britain in September 2020 and was hailed as a masterpiece. But
it failed to reach a wide readership and wasn’t even published in the
United States. Pringle wondered if Gurnah’s moment might never come.

A year later, it finally did. Gurnah was awarded the Nobel Prize in
Literature
<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/07/books/nobel-prize-literature-abdulrazak-gurnah.html>,
landing him in the company of Gabriel García Márquez, Albert Camus and
William Faulkner, and he became the first Black laureate since Toni
Morrison in 1993. The news sent booksellers across the world scrambling to
stock his novels and set off a frenzy to secure translation and reprint
rights. His agent, Peter Straus, said foreign rights to his books have sold
in “30 territories and rising.”

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After the Nobel announcement, Straus began fielding bids from six American
publishers for “Afterlives.” U.S. rights to the novel sold to Riverhead, an
imprint of Penguin Random House, which plans to release it in August 2022.
Riverhead also acquired North American rights to two older Gurnah books, “By
the Sea
<https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/g/gurnah-01sea.html>”
and “Desertion
<https://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/31/books/review/fiction-chronicle.html>,”
that had gone out of print.

Rebecca Saletan, who acquired the books for Riverhead, said in a news
release that she was drawn to the “combination of narrative magic and a
deeply inhabited and often devastating portrayal of the colonial and
postcolonial experience” in Gurnah's work.

But as offers poured in from international publishing houses, many readers
who were eager to sample Gurnah’s work were frustrated. The audience was
suddenly there, but copies of his books were not — in several cases, even
e-book and audiobook versions aren’t available.
Explore the New York Times Book Review

Want to keep up with the latest and greatest in books? This is a good place
to start.

   -
      - Learn what you should be reading this fall: Our collection of
      reviews on books coming out this season
      <https://www.nytimes.com/spotlight/new-books-fall-2021?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-books-general&variant=1_show&region=MAIN_CONTENT_1&context=STYLN_TOP_LINKS_recirc>
includes
      biographies, novels, memoirs and more.
      - See what’s new in October: Among this month’s new titles
      <https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/29/books/new-october-books.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-books-general&variant=1_show&region=MAIN_CONTENT_1&context=STYLN_TOP_LINKS_recirc>
are
      novels by Jonathan Franzen, a history of Black cinema and a biography by
      Katie Couric.
      - Nominate a book: The New York Times Book Review has just turned
      125. That got us wondering: What is the best book that was published
      during that time?
      <https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/books/best-book-nominate.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-books-general&variant=1_show&region=MAIN_CONTENT_1&context=STYLN_TOP_LINKS_recirc>
      - Listen to our podcast: Featuring conversations with leading figures
      in the literary world, from Colson Whitehead to Leila Slimani, the
      Book Review Podcast
      <https://www.nytimes.com/column/book-review-podcast?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-books-general&variant=1_show&region=MAIN_CONTENT_1&context=STYLN_TOP_LINKS_recirc>
helps
      you delve deeper into your favorite books.

The reasons for the shortfall are manifold. Because of the low demand for
Gurnah’s work over the decades, many of his titles were out of print in the
United States and in low stock in Britain. And supply-chain problems
<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/04/books/book-publishing-supply-chain-delays.html>
 — with backups at paper mills, printing presses, shipping containers and
warehouses — have made it difficult to get new copies printed now that
demand has spiked.

It’s not unusual for publishers and booksellers to be caught off guard by
the Nobel. Unlike other major literary prizes, like the Booker
<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/14/books/booker-prize-2021-shortlist.html> and
the National Book Awards
<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/books/national-book-awards-shortlist-finalists-2021.html>,
which announce longlisted contenders and finalists in advance, the Nobel is
a black box, and it has often been awarded to writers with low
international profiles, including the German writer Herta Müller
<https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/books/09nobel.html>, the Austrian
playwright and poet Elfriede Jelinek
<https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/07/books/fiery-austrian-writer-wins-nobel-prize-for-literature.html>,
and the French novelist Patrick Modiano
<https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/10/books/patrick-modiano-wins-nobel-prize-in-literature.html>.
In some instances, American publishing houses have had to quickly acquire
rights and commission translations.
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This year, logistical logjams have made it even harder for booksellers to
catch up to the surge in interest.

“We have relatively little stock and it’s all shot out the door, and we’re
waiting as everybody is for the printing presses,” James Daunt, chief
executive of Barnes & Noble, said in an interview nearly two weeks after
the Nobel was announced.
Image
[image: A bookseller in London holds copies of three of Gurnah’s books: “By
the Sea,” “Gravel Heart” and “Afterlives.”]
A bookseller in London holds copies of three of Gurnah’s books: “By the
Sea,” “Gravel Heart” and “Afterlives.”Credit...Alberto Pezzali/Associated
Press

A week after Gurnah received the Nobel, a customer service representative
at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square said it had a single copy of one of
Gurnah’s novels, “Gravel Heart
<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/08/books/review/what-we-lose-zinzi-clemmons.html>,”
in the store, but even that copy had been plucked from the shelves. Nearly
three weeks after the Nobel announcement, Barnes & Noble’s website had
digital editions of Gurnah’s novels, but only one, “Paradise
<https://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/18/books/in-short-fiction.html>,” was
available in print. On Monday, Shannon DeVito, the director of books for
Barnes & Noble, said that the stores were still waiting for inventory they
had ordered on the day of the announcement, and that they expected orders
of a few thousand copies to arrive this week.

On Amazon, print editions of several of Gurnah’s titles were listed as out
of stock in print, and some were available for resale for exorbitant prices.

Independent booksellers have also been stuck waiting. Lindsay Lynch, a
buyer at Parnassus Books in Nashville, said Monday that the store has tried
to get paperback copies of “Gravel Heart” and “The Last Gift” from
Bloomsbury, but they’re back-ordered.

At Third Place Books, an independent chain in Washington State, a few
orders for Gurnah’s books came in, and the store was able to get copies of
“Paradise,” but is still waiting for other titles to become available.
“Almost all of them are out of print,” said Robert Sindelar, a managing
partner for the store.

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Mark LaFramboise, a book buyer at Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C.,
said the store often struggles to get stock of a new Nobel laureate, but
this year it’s been unusually difficult. “In a typical year, it would take
about two weeks. This year, I hesitate to even guess,” he said.

In Britain, Bloomsbury has ordered “tens of thousands” of reprints, which
are shipping all over the world, Pringle said. “Our printers are doing
really well, they’re pulling all the stops out.”

In the United States, restocking has been more challenging. The bulk of
Gurnah’s catalog is published by Bloomsbury USA, which has six of his
books. Bloomsbury expects to have copies of “Gravel Heart” and “The Last
Gift” in stock by mid-November. Bloomsbury said it had seen a significant
bump in e-book sales but declined to share print or sales figures.

The New Press, an independent American publisher, which released three of
Gurnah’s books in the 1990s and 2000s, had 126 copies of his novel
“Paradise” in the warehouse before the Nobel was announced, and it quickly
sold out. It has received orders for more than 19,000 copies of “Paradise”
— which had sold just 5,763 copies since its release in 1994.

As luck would have it, the New Press had enrolled the novel in a
print-to-order program through the book distributor Ingram, which allows
publishers to fulfill customer orders quickly and ship them from Ingram’s
warehouse. The publisher will also be releasing a digital edition of
“Paradise” soon.

Ellen Adler, the publisher of the New Press, said she was relieved and
delighted that the company could fill the rush of orders, and noted that
she was struck by a comment Gurnah made after learning that he had won the
prize, when he confessed that he hoped to gain a larger audience.

“Mr. Gurnah is right that he could do with more readers,” she said.

Similar laments were made by fans in the literary community. In the
magazine Brittle Paper, which published comments from 103 African writers
about the significance of Gurnah’s work
<https://brittlepaper.com/2021/10/103-african-writers-respond-to-abdulrazak-gurnahs-nobel-prize-win/>,
several writers said they hoped the prize would raise his global profile.
“Our well-kept secret is out in the open!” wrote Leila Aboulela.

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Gurnah, for his part, was sanguine about his relatively small following in
an interview with The New York Times following the Nobel announcement.

“The failure to find an audience is not the fault of the writer or indeed
the publishers,” he said. “So much of what we think of as literature is at
the mercy of people who can afford to buy books, and so much of this is
informed by whatever the fashions are.”

Pringle, his editor, feels confident that Gurnah’s moment has not only
arrived but will endure.

“He is a master and one of Africa’s greatest living writers,” she said. “He
will now be published and read all over the world.”
Abdulrazak Gurnah, Nobel Laureate