Debut novel to get global release
American publisher snaps up a Singaporean writer’s debut novel.
SINGAPOREAN author Claris s aN. Goenawan c linc hed abook deal with Americ an publis her Soho Pres s earlier this month for her debut novel Rainbirds, about a Japanes e man whos e dreary life is s haken up by his s is ter’s murder.
The book, whic h will be out late next year, has rac ked up as tring of honours even before it was pic ked up by the publis her. Las t year, its manus c ript beat 805 other entries to bag the £ 2,000 ( RM10,000) Bath Novel Award, an international prize for unpublis hed and independently publis hed novelis ts .
Rainbirds als o emerged as one of the three finalis ts for the £ 10,000 ( RM53,000) Dundee International Book Prize – Britain’s premier award for debut novelis ts – and was s hortlis ted for the 2015 Santa Fe Writers Projec t Literary Award in the United States .
Bec oming awriter was Goenawan’s c hildhood dream, but s he found hers elf s helving that dream as s he entered adulthood.
“I was an avid reader and always loved to write, but it was n’t exac tly afeas ible livelihood plan. I kind of forgot about it until afew years ago, when I dec ided to take a break from the workforc e,” s ays the 28- year- old, who is married to aphotographer.
“I thought, why not try doing s omething I really want to do.”
She left her job in banking four years ago and now juggles writing and taking c are of her three young c hildren.
Rainbirds is s et in Japan in 1994 and follows agrieving Ren Is hida, who, after learning of his s is ter Keiko’s murder, dec ides to move to the s mall town where s he lived. There, he takes ajob as ateac her at the s ame c ram s c hool Keiko worked at, befriends atroubled young s tudent and, guided by rec urring dreams of alittle girl, unearths dark s ec rets from his pas t.
“The ideac ame when I thought of what would happen if s omeone died unexpec tedly – and no one really knew what kind of life s he had been leading,” s ays Goenawan in an interview earlier this week.
A fan of manga, s he c hos e to s et the book in Japan as s he wanted it to unfold in an As ian c ountry with four s eas ons and awide range of geographic al bac kdrops , s uc h as mountains and lakes .
AmaraHos hijo, the ac quiring editor at Soho Pres s – aNew York City- bas ed publis her whos e authors inc lude Sue Towns end of Adrian M ole fame and award- winning Haitian- Americ an novelis t Edwidge Dantic at – had high prais e for the novel when c ontac ted.
“From the firs t page of Rainbirds, Claris s a’s writing s truc k me as not only beautifully literary and effortles s ly trans portive, but als o c apable of res onating with awide audienc e, muc h like the works of Haruki Murakami and Elena Ferrante,” s he s ays .
“Rainbirds s hatters s o many boundaries , from genre limitations to the dic hotomy of c ommerc ial vers us literary. I am exc ited to have found anovel that I believe forges new territory.”
Goenawan wrote the firs t draft of the book during the 2013 National Novel Writing Month ( aka NaNoWriMo)– an annual, worldwide initiative where as piring writers pledge to pen 50,000 words in the month of November.
Then c ame one- and- a- half years of editing before s he s ent it out to c ompetitions and agents .
“I c ollec ted afair number of rejec tions while looking for an agent before rec eiving offers from London, New York and Barc elona,” s he s ays .
In January, s he s igned with Barc elona- bas ed Pontas Agenc y, a literary agenc y with as table of c lients that inc ludes Nigerian writer Chigozie Obioma– whos e firs t novel, The Fishermen, was s hortlis ted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize – and legendary Indones ian writer PramoedyaAnantaToer.
In amatter of months , Rainbirds was pic ked up by Soho Pres s .
Goenawan was born in Surabaya, Indones ia, and moved to Singapore in her teens for her s tudies . She did vis ual c ommunic ation des ign at the Las alle College of the Arts in the mid- 2000s , then went on to get adegree in marketing from Britain’s Univers ity of Bradford.
Las t year, s he joined as ixmonth, online novel- writing c ours e at Curtis Brown Creative, awriting s c hool run by Britis h literary agenc y Curtis Brown, rec eiving guidanc e from author and literary agent AnnaDavis and writer Chris Wakling.
Goenawan is working on two manus c ripts at the moment – a mys tery with elements of magic al realis m and alove s tory – while als o working with Soho Pres s editors on Rainbirds to get it ready for public ation.
“It’s s till hard to believe. I’m s o, s o happy and exc ited. I’m glad that my book has found agreat home.”