Phil Whitaker joins Salt with new novel

Salt is publishing award-winning novelist and columnist Phil Whitaker’s fifth novel, Sister Sebastian’s Library.

Publisher Jen Hamilton-Emery at Salt obtained world English rights for the new novel from Jonny Geller at Curtis Brown, with a view to publishing in September 2016 in hardback.

In Sister Sebastian’s Library, Whitaker traces the relationships surrounding two secular Catholic sisters. Bridie takes her vows to become a nun, but mysteriously goes missing in Africa. Elodie abandons her children and her estranged husband to travel to find her. 

Hamilton-Emery said: “Phil Whitaker’s crystalline prose and depth of characterisation is all brought to bear in this gorgeous mystery of relationships, loyalty and trust. We’re absolutely delighted that this deeply talented writer is joining our list. He is, in every sense, the perfect Salt author.”

Phil Whitaker is a working GP and regular columnist in the New Statesman. He won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for Whitbread First Novel Award for his novel, Eclipse of the Sunin 1997. He went on to win the Encore Award with his second novel, Triangulation, in 2000 (both published by Weidenfeld) and published two other novels, The Face (2004) and Freak of Nature (2007, both with Atlantic).