Archives par étiquette : The Friedrich Agency

THEY WISH ON US A SECOND DEATH de Jiyoung Han

A daughter disappears and returns as a tiger. A mother’s voice compels those who hear it to speak only the truth. A granddaughter can see the dreams of others, revealing their deepest-held memories and desires. These women are all part of the same lineage, a Korean family whose lives are upended under Japanese imperialism, which unfolds on the pages of Jiyoung Han’s powerful and sweeping debut novel.

THEY WISH ON US A SECOND DEATH
by Jiyoung Han
Avid Reader, Spring 2026
(via The Friedrich Agency)

While the novel spans ninety years as one family is displaced across Asia, its beating heart is Young-Ja, who finds herself adrift and struggling to survive after her family is killed by Japanese soldiers. The gift that once brought her comfort and joy—the ability to infuse her cooking with her feelings: love, peace, delight—transforms into something more complex as she encounters the ravages of colonialism and can’t keep the tang of her sorrow from seeping into her confections. When her talent is noticed by a Korean resistance fighter, she’s taken to Manchuria where she becomes enmeshed in a network of spies at a teahouse favored by Japanese officials.

With the intergenerational sweep of Pachinko, the atmospheric magical realism of How Much of These Hills Is Gold?, and the episodic vignettes of Homegoing, THEY WISH ON US A SECOND DEATH uses elements of folklore to explore the ways colonialism forces one family—whose identity it is determined to subsume—to transform, and ultimately survive.

In Jiyoung Han‘s own words: “I am a Korean American woman who only learned as an adult about my grandparents’ experience under Japanese rule. I’ve since committed to studying this history, in part for my BA at UChicago and Master’s at Harvard. My first novel is an attempt to bring this history to life for more readers and to make amends for the ignorance of my youth.”

NYPMH de Sofia Montrone

NYMPH pairs Call Me by Your Name with the precise, elevated prose of Elena Ferrante. Sofia Montrone’s debut revels in the exuberant highs and awkward lows of girlhood, set to the backdrop of rural Lombardy.

NYPMH
by Sofia Montrone
Avid Reader Press, publication date TBD
(via The Friedrich Agency)

Leo spends her mornings tidying the rooms of her Nonna Tina’s timeworn Italian agriturismo, carefully accumulating the curious leftbehind detritus from guests—a pearl earring, a lock of hair. At night, she gathers the stories that flow from her father’s lips—liquor-spun tales of Odysseus and the Trojans in secret battle. When an accident rips the gentle membrane of Leo’s childhood, she is left vulnerable to the pains and pleasures of growing up.

Years later, in a sultry summer not unlike the many that came before, the agriturismo is the only thing that remains the same. Nonna Tina has grown older, Leo’s brother Max is intractable and mercurial, and the curiosity Leo so loved to feed as a child has turned into something more confusing. When she meets Dolores, an American girl, she can’t help but gather all the experiences first love promises, while shedding parts of the past she no longer fits into.

Sofia Montrone is as an adjunct assistant professor in Columbia’s Undergraduate Writing Program, served as Editor-in-Chief of The Columbia Review and the Director of Columbia Artist/Teachers.

NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED de Yu-Mei Balasingamchow

Structured as a handful of confessional-style podcast episodes that are by turns suspenseful, outrageous, heart-breaking and poignant, Yu-Mei Balasingamchow’s NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED is that rare novel where an unmistakably literary voice keeps you on the very edge of your seat.

NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED
by Yu-Mei Balasingamchow
Tiny Reparations Books/PRH, publication date TBD
(via The Friedrich Agency)

Ophir isn’t her real name, but she likes it fine for now, and if she’s going to get through this story—the real story of her last 12 years on the run—she’s going to do it on her own terms. This is what our narrator promises as she sets out to broadcast (with the help of a mysterious friend, from an undisclosed location) her tumultuous life as a fugitive, forever estranged from her home and family in Singapore, where it all began. Entrancing her listeners with a tale that transports us from Thailand to Tokyo, and from London to America’s Midwest, it is Ophir’s loneliness and longing for connection that eventually jeopardizes her hard-won freedom. 

Like R.F. Kuang’s YELLOWFACE and Susie Yang’s WHITE IVY, NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED is a stylish, fast-paced story that tests the limits of our ability to empathize with a morally dubious narrator, while also interrogating the idea of a performed self, and what makes an authentic voice. And like Angie Cruz’s HOW NOT TO DROWN IN A GLASS OF WATER, this is a confession that recounts and reframes the complicated paths we take to build a life and a home. Ultimately, it’s an immigrant story… but not the one you expect. 

Yu-Mei Balasingamchow was born and raised in Singapore but now lives in Boston, where she teaches writing workshops (Grub Street) and was for several years a bookseller at Papercuts JP. NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED was written with the support of the Elizabeth George Foundation, and Yu-Mei has previously attended Sewanee (on scholarship), Tin House, and Bread Loaf to workshop her short fiction. Her short stories have won prizes (the Mississippi Review Fiction prize) and special mentions (The Pushcart Prize, Sewanee Review fiction prize, and the Commonwealth Prize in the UK). She received her MFA from Boston University, and this is her debut novel.

THE WEDDING PEOPLE d’Alison Espach bientôt adapté au cinéma

La société de production TriStar Pictures a remporté aux enchères les droits d’adaptation du prochain roman d’Alison Espach, THE WEDDING PEOPLE.

A la réalisation, le duo formé par Will Speck et Josh Gordon (Hit Monkey, Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, Blades of Glory, The Switch, Office Christmas Party) adaptera le scénario écrit par Nicole Holofcener (nominée aux Oscars pour le scénario du film Les Faussaires de Manhattan). Les sociétés Speck + Gordon Inc. et Concordia Studio produiront le film en partenariat avec TriStar. (Lire l’article de Deadline)

Dans le roman, Phoebe, à la suite d’une rencontre fortuite dans un ascenseur, se lie d’amitié avec une future mariée et se retrouve invitée à son mariage, ce qui change à jamais le cours de la vie des deux femmes. Le roman sera publié en juillet 2024 par Henry Holt & Co. aux États-Unis.

Les droits de langue française sont toujours disponibles.

LUMINOUS de Silvia Park

Set in a unified Korea where robots have integrated seamlessly into society, LUMINIOUS is a poignant debut novel for readers of Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go and Karen Joy Fowler’s We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.

LUMINOUS
by Silvia Park
‎ Simon & Schuster, March 2025
(via The Friedrich Agency)

Adult siblings Jun and Morgan Cho haven’t seen or spoken to each other in several years. Both, in their dysfunctional way, are still processing grief over the sudden loss of their brother Yoyo years prior. Yoyo, designed by their famous father, was the earliest prototype for what the humanoid robots have now become—nearly indistinguishable from the real thing, with profound sensitivity and depth. But while he was a true brother to Jun and Morgan, Yoyo was always bound for a darker purpose, and his absence has left a chasm in the siblings’ lives.
When a neighbor’s missing robot thrusts Morgan back into Jun’s life, neither of them realizes that the investigation will not only force them to confront their fractured family’s past, but it will also see old grudges clash with new revelations, as the three siblings circle each other, their lonely worlds finally collide.

Silvia Park is a Korean/American writer and Visiting Assistant Professor of Fiction at Oberlin College. A graduate of Columbia, NYU, and the 2018 Clarion Workshop, their work has appeared or is forthcoming in Black Warrior Review, Joyland, Tor.com, and The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, among others.