Conville & Walsh

Conville and Walsh are delighted to announce PIGEON ENGLISH by Stephen Kelman, a remarkable first novel from an emerging talent. Helen Garnons-Williams at Bloomsbury has fought off no fewer than 11 other UK publishers, from Bantam to Faber and Chatto, to acquire the novel for a high six-figure sum.

PIGEON ENGLISH is the story of five months in the life of twelve year old Harrison Opoku. Newly arrived from Ghana, he lives on an estate with his mother and sister, where he skips through his new life, blissfully unaware of the very real threat all around him. With equal fascination for the local gang, the Dell Farm Crew, and for the different shapes of Haribo, Harrison tries to get used to England, watching, listening, and merrily attempting to learn the tricks of inner-city survival.  But when he and his friend, Dean Griffin, see the police tape around a dead boy, they start a murder investigation of their own, and the Dell Farm Crew are not amused…

The Observer wrote that this was a ‘remarkable sale in the present climate,’ praising our reader, David Llewellyn, for spotting it in our unsolicited submissions. PIGEON ENGLISH has been sold for healthy sums in Italy (Piemme), Germany (Berlin Verlag), France (Gallimard), Netherlands (Bezige Bij) and Israel (Kinneret), and was pre-empted for Spanish (Salamandra) and Catalan (Salamandra) rights.

Update 18/02/10: PIGEON ENGLISH has now also been sold in Brazil (Rocco) and Simplified Chinese (Shanghai99).