"It’s a timeless story told in a timely way: Mayan codex meets superhero comic book"—New York Times A middle grade graphic novel follows the adventures of a magical boy from Maya mythology. The first of a series based on ancient Mesoamerican myths and legends. Sayam has always been different from other kids—he’s very short for his age, his best friend is a monkey, and most curious of all: he was born from an egg! His grandmother, a witch, found him and taught him all the ancient magic she uses to help her people. So when a giant snake starts terrorizing a nearby city, Sayam decides it’s time for him to use his knowledge to help others, and steps into action. But the beast might not be Sayam’s biggest problem: the ruthless King Kinich Kak Ek sees Sayam as a threat to his throne. Prophecy declares that whoever succeeds at three impossible tests will be king. Monstrous snakes and impossible tests are a lot for a boy to handle, but Sayam is brave and has a loyal monkey, a wise grandmother, and magical knowledge on his side! Fans of adventure tales with a mythological focus—such as Bowles’ previous work with Latin American myths, The Chupacabras of the Rio Grande and the Garza Twin series, as well as Rick Riordan Presents, especially the Storm Runner novels—will love this exciting and accessible graphic novel. Rise of the Halfling King is also an invaluable educational tool for middle school students—it’s a well-researched introduction to Maya culture, made accessible by an expert in Mesoamerican culture and juvenile literature. Bowles previously stitched together tales from Maya, Aztec, and other ancient mythology from pre-Columbian Mexico in the critically-acclaimed YA book, Feathered Serpent, Dark Heart of Sky . David Bowles is a Mexican American author and educator based in South Texas. He has written fourteen books. His middle grade novel-in-verse They Call Me Güero has been the recipient of numerous honors such as the Pura Belpré Honor, the Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award, the Claudia Lewis Award for Excellence in Poetry, the Walter Dean Myers Honor Award for Outstanding Children’s Literature, the Texas Institute of Letters Best Middle Grade Book Award, the Skipping Stones Award; the book is also an Américas Book Award Commended Title and was named in the Bluebonnet Award Masterlist. Some of his other books are Feathered Serpent, Dark Heart of Sky and The Smoking Mirror . Charlene Bowles is a comic artist and illustrator based in Texas. She graduated from The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in 2018. Rise of the Halfling King is her debut graphic novel and her work has also been featured on the covers of the award-winning Garza Twins books. She is currently developing many of her own comic projects. Best Books of 2020, Middle Grade—Kirkus Reviews2021 TLA Little Maverick list101 Great Books for Kids List of 2020, Evanston Public Library
El Paso/Juárez served as the tinderbox of the Mexican Revolution and the tumultuous years to follow. In essays and archival photographs, David Romo tells the surreal stories at the roots of the greatest Latin American revolution: The sainted beauty queen Teresita inspires revolutionary fervor and is rumored to have blessed the first rifles of the revolutionaries; anarchists publish newspapers and hatch plots against the hated Porfirio Diaz regime; Mexican outlaw Pancho Villa eats ice cream cones and rides his Indian motorcycle happily through downtown; El Paso’s gringo mayor wears silk underwear because he is afraid of Mexican lice; John Reed contributes a never-before-published essay; young Mexican maids refuse to be deloused so they shut down the border and back down Pershing’s men in the process; vegetarian and spiritualist Francisco Madero institutes the Mexican revolutionary junta in El Paso before crossing into Juárez to his ill-fated presidency and assassination; and bands play Verdi while firing squads go about their deadly business. Romo’s work does what Mike Davis’ City of Quartz did for Los Angeles—it presents a subversive and contrary vision of the sister cities during this crucial time for both countries. David Dorado Romo , the son of Mexican immigrants, is an essayist, historian, musician and cultural activist. Ringside Seat to a Revolution is the result of his three-year exploration of archives detailing the cultural and political roots of the Mexican Revolution along la frontera. Romo received a degree in Judaic studies at Stanford University and has studied in Israel and Italy.
The Renaissance in Florence conjures images of beautiful frescoes and elegant buildings—the dazzling handiwork of the city’s skilled artists and architects. But equally important for the centuries to follow were geniuses of a different sort: Florence’s manuscript hunters, scribes, scholars, and booksellers, who blew the dust off a thousand years of history and, through the discovery and diffusion of ancient knowledge, imagined a new and enlightened world. <p> At the heart of this activity, which bestselling author Ross King relates in his exhilarating new book, was a remarkable man: Vespasiano da Bisticci. Born in 1422, he became what a friend called “the king of the world’s booksellers.” At a time when all books were made by hand, over four decades Vespasiano produced and sold many hundreds of volumes from his bookshop, which also became a gathering spot for debate and discussion. Besides repositories of ancient wisdom by the likes of Plato, Aristotle, and Quintilian, his books were works of art in their own right, copied by talented scribes and illuminated by the finest miniaturists. His clients included a roll-call of popes, kings, and princes across Europe who wished to burnish their reputations by founding magnificent libraries. <p> Vespasiano reached the summit of his powers as Europe’s most prolific merchant of knowledge when a new invention appeared: the printed book. By 1480, the king of the world’s booksellers was swept away by this epic technological disruption, whereby cheaply produced books reached readers who never could have afforded one of Vespasiano’s elegant manuscripts. <p> A thrilling chronicle of intellectual ferment set against the dramatic political and religious turmoil of the era, Ross King’s brilliant <i>The Bookseller of Florence</i> is also an ode to books and bookmaking that charts the world-changing shift from script to print through the life of an extraordinary man long lost to history—one of the true titans of the Renaissance.
An urgent, millennial love story, in the vein of Sally Rooney’s NORMAL PEOPLE, but from a Black male perspective, OPEN WATER will appeal to readers of Ocean Vuong’s ON EARTH WE’RE BRIEFLY GORGEOUS, ORDINARY PEOPLE by Diana Evans, Claudia Rankine’s CITIZEN, and Zadie Smith’s NW, as well as fans of early James Baldwin, the work of Ta-Nahesi Coates, and the Oscar-winning film MOONLIGHT. OPEN WATER explores big themes— race, class, sexuality, masculinity, and what it means to be seen—and could not be more relevant today. 26-year-old Nelson’s star is already on the rise: his short story “Pray” is a finalist for the BBC Short Story Award (previous alumni of the award include Lionel Shriver, Zadie Smith, Hilary Mantel and Jon McGregor) and was broadcast on air narrated by Zadie Smith’s brother, rapper and actor, Ben Bailey-Smith. The BBC will also run a series of Nelson’s original photographs commissioned especially for the story. Nelson has connections with literary stars like Paul Beatty, Raymond Antrobus, Candice Carty-Williams, Kei Miller, Eley Williams, and Lucy Caldwell to name but a few and we expect support from them and writers like Bernadine Evaristo, Nadia Owusu, Brandon Taylor, and more This is the British literary debut of 2021: rights were acquired by Vintage UK in a hotly contested nine-way auction and they will publish as their lead title in February 2021. Rights also sold in Itlay to Atlantide and Russia to Eksmo, with Grove nimbly acquiring early in a preempt. Nelson has nonfiction work forthcoming in THE WHITE REVIEW (Fall 2020) and in Spring 2021 will begin work on an audio installation commissioned by The Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, in collaboration with BBC Sounds, Chisenhale Gallery and DAZED Magazine. (The installation, centered on the intimacies of a house party from a Black British lens, will be on physical display in the museum and will also run online).
After the resounding success of The Raw Shark Texts , Steven Hall’s fans have been waiting excitedly for his sophomore novel, and Hall has outdone himself in Maxwell’s Demon . At once brilliantly twisty and literary as well as fast-paced and accessible, this is a novel that should widen his audience. The Raw Shark Texts sold in over 30 territories and was received with rapturous reviews comparing him to writers ranging from Samuel Beckett to Michael Crichton. We sold over 60,000 copies of The Raw Shark Texts in America, and it continues to backlist. We think that we can captivate readers equally with Maxwell’s Demon . Maxwell’s Demon will be published by Canongate in the UK on February 4, 2021, and we are following alongside HarperCollins Canada. We will have the advantage of significant UK review and feature attention as we publish. Steven Hall has been widely acclaimed as a major new voice since the publication of The Raw Shark Texts . He was named one of Granta ’s Best of Young British Novelists in 2013, alongside Zadie Smith, Helen Oyeyemi, and Taiye Selasi and was the winner of the Borders Original Voices Fiction Award. An unforgettable entry into the genre of literary novels centered around books as popularized by The Shadow of the Wind , Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore , The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry , and The Eyre Affair , Maxwell’s Demon is smarter and sharper than almost any comparable title. The bookish subject matter is sure to appeal to booksellers and all lovers of literature, including fans of Paul Murray and Kevin Wilson. It is the product of a freewheeling mind that engages the reader with truly phenomenal rewards.
Night and Day was originally staged in 1978 at the Phoenix Theatre in London, directed by Peter Wood and starring Maggie Smith. The production moved to New York in 1979. The play was revised significantly for its revival at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco in 2002. Grove is republishing titles by Stoppard that were previously published by FSG (including Arcadia , Indian Ink , and The Real Thing ) and updating our Stoppard backlist to give these books a fresh look. We are also publishing the old FSG titles in ebook for the first time.
Kathy Acker’s practice of literary appropriation and pastiche made her notorious—as a rebel and a groundbreaker—when Great Expectations was first published in 1982. Here, she begins rewriting Charles Dickens’s classic—splicing it with passages from Pierre Guyotat’s sexually violent Eden, Eden, Eden , among other texts—alongside Acker’s trademark pithy dialogue, as well as prank missives to the likes of Susan Sontag, Sylvère Lotringer, and God.At the center of this form-shifting narrative, Acker’s protagonist collects an inheritance following her mother’s suicide, which compels her to revisit and reinterpret traumatic scenes from the past. Switching perspectives, identities, genders, and centuries, the speaker lustily ransacks world literature to celebrate and challenge the discourse around art, love, life, and death.
Grove is reissuing all of Stoppard’s backlist, including the books previously published by FSG, in new, beautiful, definitive editions.