Posted on August 5, 2021 at 10:00 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek
It’s starting to feel as though a Booker Prize tradition is having an author who struggled to find a traditional publisher for the work that ended up being longlisted.
That role is being filled, this year, by Karen Jennings, author of An Island.
She told the Guardian that her previous publisher didn’t want the tale of a lighthouse keeper and the refugee stranded on the shore of his island, and the small press that ultimately accepted it only ordered 500 copies.
(Her publisher has since ordered another 5,000 copies, now that her book is in contention for the Booker Prize, and is responding to increased interest from around the world.)
Jennings talks more about An Island’s challenging route to success — critical at first but now hopefully financial, too — and her own background in an interview with the Guardian.
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Categories: Author Interview