Golden Hill

Golden Hill is the first novel by Francis Spufford, the author of Red Plenty (2010) and Unapologetic (2012). It was published in hardback in Britain by Faber & Faber in June 2016; in paperback in October 2016. Translations in Czech, German, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Catalan, Polish, Turkish and Chinese are following. An American edition was published by Scribner on 27th June 2017. The tumblr for Unapologetic – now suspended – is here.

[golden-hill]

The Turkish translation, by Berkan Simsek, will be published on 26 July.

[golden-hill]

[golden-hill]

The French translation of Golden Hill by Nadine Gassie, published by Editions Slatkine of Geneva, is out today.

[golden-hill]

From Adam Roberts twitter feed.

[golden-hill]

‘This is another story from the time when your grandparents were children; and also from near the beginning of Narnia.  In those days, clothes for boys and girls were more uncomfortable than they are now, and good manners were much more tiresome and complicated, but people were better at minding their own business, and if you wanted to go hunting for rabbits with a bow you had made yourself, nobody would tell you it was bad for you.  They might punish you if they caught you, but that is different.  Mr Sherlock Holmes was still solving mysteries in Baker St, but the Bastables had stopped seeking for treasure in the Lewisham Road, because they had moved from London into the country.  And so had Digory Kirke, to the long grey house under the shoulder of mountains all purple with heather, where he lived now with his father, his mother, and his uncle...’

Happy Christmas.

[golden-hill]

Golden Hill roundtable

Scarily (for me) but interestingly, Golden Hill is being discussed this week at The Junto, a group blog for early American historians.  The first post, today, is about the representation of commerce in the book.  There’ll be others all week, and on Friday me responding to a Q&A.  I have been trying to make it clear all along that the novel is only as researched as it needed to be for the view to seem solid in whatever direction the reader is looking, while just out of shot scene-shifters hurry along a column on castors.  But this is where the difference between a good-enough scrim and actual scholarship becomes inescapably clear...

[golden-hill]

Every single human-made thing found in a drained Dutch canal, going backwards in time from now to the 14th century.  

[golden-hill]

More playful graphics for the Polish edition.

[golden-hill]

Department of Nice Things: Golden Hill (starting at 29′30″) wins one of the New York Society Library’s 2018 New York Book Awards.  This is a library founded in 1754 in a cupboard in the very building on Wall Street in which I had Mr Smith imprisoned, tried, danced with, and obliged to play cards for high stakes.

[golden-hill]

The newly published Polish translation of Golden Hill, out for a picnic with the blog-reviewer Diana Chmiel, who described it as being ‘a bit like a play, where everything is exaggerated but exaggerated for a good purpose’. Meanwhile the review at Gazeta Wyborcza by Katarzyna Wężyk [paywall] called it ‘superbly written’ and ‘much more than clever’.  

[golden-hill]

More New Zealand, this time from a conversation in Christchurch with Chris Moore, 7 March 2018

[golden-hill]

The event I did with Ingrid Horrocks in Wellington in March at the New Zealand Festival Writers & Readers Week, graphically reported by Tara Black.

[golden-hill]

European reviews round-up

Dutch translation

Het Parool [not online]: 'Roman vol energie en vertelplezier.’  A novel full of energy and storytelling.

Trouw: ‘”Gouden bergen” is dan wel een historische roman, maar laat vooral veel zien over tijdloze mechanismes tussen mensen.’ Golden Hill may be a historical novel, but it tells you a lot about the timeless mechanisms of human behaviour.

De Volkskrant: ‘Een jolly good read.’ A... jolly good read.

Boekenkrant: ‘Ik zou bijna geloven dat Francis Spufford er enkele weken heeft gelogeerd om de stad zo te kunnen schetsen. Voor deze fantastische ansichtkaart ben ik hem dan ook dankbaar.’ I could almost believe Francis Spufford stayed [in 18th C NY] for a few weeks to be able to sketch the city. I’m grateful for this fantastic postcard from him.

VPRO Boeken: ‘Historisch topvermaak, geschapen voor de feestdagen.’ Top historical entertainment, just right for the holidays.

NCRV-gids: ‘Engelsman Spufford heeft twee historici als ouders. Komt het daardoor dat hij het achttiende-eeuwse leven in New York zo sprankelend weet te beschrijven?’ Englishman Spufford has two historians for parents. Is it because of this he can describe 18th century life in New York in such a sparkling way?

Italian translation

Oggi: ‘Rispetta in pieno le aspettative.’ Fully justifies expectations.

La Stampa: ‘Ciniche e belle, mascalzoni, dicerie e una favolosa fortuna.’ Cynical and beautiful women, scoundrels, rumours and a fabulous fortune.

Il Giornale: ‘Plot molto teatrale (quasi da teatro elisabettiano, quasi shakespeariano) in cui il filo rosso della narrazione è retto dal più classico degli stranieri, estraneo a tutto e a tutti, enigmatico, indecifrabile.’ A very theatrical plot (almost Elizabethan, almost Shakespearian) in which the red thread of the narration is spun by the most classic of outsiders, a stranger to everything and everyone, enigmatic, indecipherable. 

Catalan translation

Llegim:  ‘Prosa vistosa, gustosa, cruixent.’ Revealing, delicious, crackling prose.

[golden-hill]

Now with thrilling red highlights!  The US paperback edition of Golden Hill is out from Scribner as of yesterday, and is available in all the usual places, including Amazon US, Barnes and Noble, Powells and Indiebound.  

[golden-hill]

Cityscape as golden hairdo: the cover of the Polish translation, due in May 2018 from Wydawnictwo Poznanskie.

[golden-hill]

More 18th century buttons, this time from the collection of more than 2500 found in the tidal foreshore of the river Thames by the ‘mudlark’ Tony Pilson and presented by him to the Museum of London in 2009.

[golden-hill]

Real narcissus, growing against William Morris marigolds.