What I'm looking for
I’m keen to build a small, curated list of clients with whom I can collaborate alongside my translation rights work.
In my spare time I’m an enthusiastic home cook and baker, and enjoy eating my way around London, so I would love to work with food writers and cooks who have started building a platform and are keen to see their words and recipes in print. Having Japanese roots myself, I have a soft spot for Asian cuisine, patisserie and third culture cooking. My favourite writers/cookbook authors include Gurd Loyal, Letitia Clark, Samin Nosrat, Bee Wilson, Emiko Davies, Tim Anderson, Ravneet Gill and Nik Sharma.
I would also aim to use my insights into international book market trends to find non-fiction books with great translation rights potential – mainly in the areas of practical self-help, popular psychology and dating and communication, i.e. from the next James Clear, Nedra Glover Tawwab, Philippa Perry, Jefferson Fisher or Damona Hoffman.
On the fiction side I would be delighted to find upmarket or literary fiction with a compelling plot and a flair for language – books which make you feel deeply for the characters, and which explore love in all its complexity or offer a piercing commentary on societal issues.
I would devour another multi-generational epic novel such as Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, and I also appreciate sharp observations about the clash between cultures, which Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie masters so deftly in Americanah. I fall hard for bittersweet love stories like Tomasz Jedrowski’s Swimming in the Dark, or the completely absorbing love dilemma of a book such as The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller.
I read French and Italian fluently and would be open to working with authors who have been successful in those markets already, and who would like to find a UK or other international home. In general I’m interested in the work of authors from diverse cultures, and I have a particular personal fondness for books set in or about Japan or the Far East.