Seren Adams

I am looking for literary novels, novellas and stories set anywhere in the world. Increasingly I am drawn to fiction with a distinctive and off-kilter voice which holds my attention; often it is wryly funny and/or full of feeling, and usually inflected with strangeness, intensity or longing (Big Swiss by Jen Beagin, My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh, The Vegetarian by Han Kang, Vladimir by Julia May Jonas, Sylvia by Leonard Michaels, Braised Pork by An Yu, God’s Children Are Little Broken Things by Arinze Ifeakandu, Paulina and Fran by Rachel B. Glaser). For me, when reading, it is crucial that voice, story and form are working together to create something special and original. While I tend not to read historical fiction (except Hilary Mantel) or sci-fi, I enjoy books which are primarily literary but draw upon other genres, and I would love to find an unforgettable high-concept literary novel which could become an instant classic, like Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro or The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I also love realist novels which explore moral, philosophical or political questions, complex relationships, and/or troubling memories (Seven Years by Peter Stamm, The End of the Story by Lydia Davis, Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad, Dear Thief by Samantha Harvey, Remainder by Tom McCarthy, What Belongs To You by Garth Greenwell, Notes on a Scandal by Zoë Heller, Family Life by Akhil Sharma). I will always be interested in novels about intimacy, desire, love and loss, and how narratives are shaped by memory and time is an enduring fascination of mine.

In non-fiction I am looking for bold new voices in the vein of Janet Malcolm, Anna Funder, Rachel Aviv, Julia Ebner, Claudia Rankine and Amia Srinivasan. I love beautifully written and important cultural histories like those by Philippe Sands; essayistic non-fiction that explores the extremes of humanity with novelistic flair, like Larissa MacFarquhar’s Strangers Drowning; personal narratives that are carefully crafted, searing and vivid, like Hisham Matar’s The Return and Tabitha Lasley’s Sea State; and deeply researched stories about pivotal moments in history, like Pale Rider by Laura Spinney. I am excited by big ideas books with a radical edge such as Future Sex by Emily Witt and The End of Bias by Jessica Nordell, and writing that offers mind-expanding cultural commentary with sharpness and clarity, such as Sophia Giovanitti’s Working Girl and Esi Edugyan’s Out of the Sun. I’m also keen to see proposals that are doing something new within an established non-fiction genre, e.g. nature writing. I love literary true crime, particularly The Adversary by Emmanuel Carrère, The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm, Give Me Everything You Have by James Lasdun, We Keep the Dead Close by Becky Cooper, and The Red Parts by Maggie Nelson. I enjoy anything with a compelling story and investigative elements based on meticulous and sensitive research.