23 November 2023

For Immediate Release

Complex Chinese Rights to Richard Sutton’s business and mental health guide THRIVE: THE POWER OF RESILIENCE have been bought by Global Group Holding Ltd.

We live in a world that demands perfection. Big data, analytics, trend lines and averages bind us to a set of norms and values that assign a numeric worth to who we are and what we are capable of. Should we fail to meet established milestones, conform to the appro­priate curve, meet established targets or live up to pre-established societal expectations, we (and those around us) invariably experience the burden of a sense of personal failure, worthlessness and fears and anxiety about a tenuous future. In truth it doesn’t matter where we come from, our historic circum­stances, how many milestones we may have missed, the fact that we may not have achieved the perfect average or whether we failed repeatedly over the course of our lifetime. We are all capable of extra­ordinary lives and should not be bound by limitations, whether self-imposed or from external sources. What can unlock our fullest potential is resilience, a con­summate skill that can be developed and grown throughout the journey of our lives.

Originally published in South Africa by Pan Macmillan, THRIVE is a resilience manual, a practical, step-by-step guide to help the reader actualise their fullest potential, regardless of their circumstances and the challenges they may face in their lives. The book will see an Australian edition from Penguin in April 2024.

Sutton is the author of the bestseller THE STRESS CODE, STRESSPROOF, and THRIVE. He is an adviser on stress management and adaptability to industry leaders, top athletes, and Olympic teams and an expert in the field of genetics and their role in resilience, using a combination of hard data and DNA to map a ‘stress footprint’ based on both nature and nurture to unearth genuine resilience, recovery, and adaptability. Richard has been a post-graduate lecturer in the areas of pain management, health and athlete development for almost two decades at leading South African and international universities.

The deal was negotiated by Aoife Lennon-Ritchie of The Lennon-Ritchie Agency. For more information, email info@lennonliterary.com. World English language rights, excluding Southern Africa went to Watkins Media.

Hearty congratulations to Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu, whose novel THE QUALITY OF MERCY has been shortlisted for South Africa’s most coveted literary award, the SUNDAY TIMES Fiction Prize. Ndlovu won the prize previously with her debut, THE THEORY OF FLIGHT, and was again shortlisted for her book THE HISTORY OF MAN.

THE QUALITY OF MERCY tells the story of Spokes Moloi, a police officer of spotless integrity, who, on the eve of his retirement, investigates one final crime. Spokes is working the case of the possible murder of Emil Coetzee, head of the sinister Organisation of Domestic Affairs, who disappeared on the same day a ceasefire was declared on the cusp of their country’s independence. In following the tangled threads of Coetzee’s life, Spokes raises and resolves conundrums that have haunted him, and his country, for decades under colonial rule. In all this, he is staunchly supported by his paragon spouse, Loveness, and his unofficially adopted daughter, the unorthodox postman Dikeledi.

In this magnificent novel, Ndlovu showcases the history of a country transitioning from a colonial to a postcolonial state with a deft touch and a compassionate eye for poignant detail. THE QUALITY OF MERCY recently won Zimbabwe’s National Arts Merit Award (NAMA) for outstanding fiction. The novel is published in South Africa by Penguin Random House and in the United States by Catalyst Press. For rights information, contact The Lennon-Ritchie Agency.

Kurt Ellis’s taut South African thriller IN THE MIDST OF WOLVES has just been optioned for screen adaptation by The Ergo Company.

Producer Dumi Gumbi says this about the novel: ‘I just love how Kurt Ellis writes – his words leap off the page – as a producer I have been looking for a piece of material that can make a great cop/crime thriller high-end series and Kurt writes so evocatively and cinematically – one can see the story play out in one’s mind.’

IN THE MIDST OF WOLVES tells the story of Nick Creed, expert criminal profiler, who hunts down human monsters for a living. Back in South Africa after working with the FBI, he is haunted by his past mistakes, including the death of his fiancée. When a young woman is murdered and dismembered in her Johannesburg apartment, Creed’s long-time friend and head of the SAPS’ Investigative Psycho
logical Unit, Major Eli Grey, enlists his help in investigating the murder – an attempt to save the self-destructing Creed from himself. But not all the Unit’s members welcome his involvement, and there are those intent on exposing his secrets while the murder is being solved. The young woman’s community are convinced she was the victim of a witch called Nomtakhati, but Creed’s hunch points to an angry ex-boyfriend. Who, or what, is really behind the murder? Could it be Nomtakhati, who believes Nick Creed is uSatane?

IN THE MIDST OF WOLVES is a dark psychological thriller about metaphorical demons from the past and the living monsters who target the innocent by the author of the thrillers BY ANY MEANS and CHAIN OF CAUSE. Ellis is a past winner of the Harry Oppenheimer Creative Writing Award, and holds a creative writing master’s degree from the University of the Witwatersrand. He lives in Johannesburg with his wife, daughter and son.

Also published in Ukraine, IN THE MIDST OF WOLVES was first published in South Africa by Penguin Random House, who will be publishing Ellis’s newest novel, CHAIN OF CAUSE, in 2024.

Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia’s book, THE SON OF THE HOUSE, has won one of the world’s richest literary prizes, the Nigeria Prize for Literature. The prize comes with an award of $100 000 USD, sponsored by Nigeria LNG Limited.

THE SON OF THE HOUSE has been the recipient of numerous awards already. It has been shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize this year and won the SprinNG Women Author Prize 2020. It also received the Best International Fiction Book Award at the Sharjah International Book Fair 2019.

The awards ceremony was held at the Eko Hotel and Suites in Victoria Island, Lagos on October 30th. Onyemelukwe-Onuobia was there to accept the award and shared her delight on Instagram saying, “My heart is full”.

The jury of judges was chaired by Professor Olutoyin Jegede of the English department at the University of Ibadan. Also on the panel was Professor Tanimu Abubakar from Ahmadu Bello University and Dr Solomon Azumurana from the University of Lagos.

THE SON OF THE HOUSE is Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia’s debut novel. It was published in South Africa by Penguin Random House in 2019 and in North America by Dundurn Press in 2021. It has also been, or will soon be, published in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Armenia and across the world in Arabic.

The story revolves around an encounter under duress between Nwabulu and Julie, two women from vastly different backgrounds. They’re united by the same societal pressure: to marry and reproduce. Set in Nigeria, the novel is alive with local culture and family drama. It uplifts the resilience of women navigating patriarchal society.

Strong female characters were a recurring theme on the Nigeria Prize for Literature’s shortlist. The other two finalists were THE GIRL WITH THE LOUDING VOICE by Abi Daré (published by Dutton Books) and COLOURS OF HATRED by Obinna Udenwe (also published by Parresia Publishers). Onyemelukwe-Onuobia is a lawyer, academic and writer of Nigerian origin who is based in both Nigeria and Canada. She graduated with a doctorate in law from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia and works primarily in the areas of health, gender, and violence against women and children.

Congratulations to Marguerite Poland! Her novel, A SIN OF OMISSION, won the 2021 Fiction Prize of the Sunday Times CNA Literary Awards.

The chair of the judging panel, author Ken Barris, said: “Poland is in scathing form in her heartbreaking tale of a young black missionary in the Eastern Cape.”

A SIN OF OMISSION is the fifth novel by acclaimed author Marguerite Poland. The book is published in South Africa by Penguin Random House and will be published in the UK by Envelope Books early next year. The novel was shortlisted for the 2020 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.

The book tells the story of Stephen, a young Black Anglican priest in the Victorian Era. When he must return to his rural homeland to inform his mother of his brother’s death, long-held conflicts emerge. Torn between allegiance to his people and the Cape’s colonial powers, Stephen must finally confront the contradictions of his life.

Poland is an awardee of the South African Order of Ikhamanga in Silver. Her expertise in African linguistics and anthropology bring Stephen’s world to life. She is fluent in both isiXhosa and isiZulu.

The Sunday Times CNA Literary Awards were founded in 1989 by the weekly South African newspaper, The Sunday Times. The Fiction Prize is awarded to “a novel of rare imagination and style, evocative, textured and a tale so compelling as to become an enduring landmark of contemporary fiction.” The prize is R100 000.

This year’s awards were open to novels from both 2019 and 2020 due to the cancellation of last year’s prize during the coronavirus pandemic. The other shortlisted books were: BREAKING MILK by Dawn Garisch (published by Karavan Press), THE HISTORY OF MAN by Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu (published by Penguin Fiction, an imprint of Penguin Random House South Africa), SCATTERLINGS by Rešoketšwe Manenzhe (published by Jacana Media) and DUE SOUTH OF COPENHAGEN by Mark Winkler (published by Umuzi, an imprint of Penguin Random House South Africa).

Joining Ken Barris on the judging panel were Nancy Richards, an author and independent journalist, and Wamuwi Mbao, a writer and essayist.