The North America rights to Imbolo Mbue’s second novel has been acquired by Penguin Random House. The manuscript, currently titled How Beautiful We Were, sold by Mbue’s agent Susan Golomb and acquired by the editor Andy Ward, is, according to the publishing house, “a story told through multiple perspectives about what happens when an African village decides to fight back against an American oil company that is destroying their land.” The sale was reported by Publishers Weekly.

The Cameroonian novelist broke out when her debut, then titled The Longings of Jende Jonga and eventually Behold the Dreamers, saw her receive a million-dollar advance in 2014, the first African writer to do so. Published in 2016, Behold the Dreamers went on to win the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and be chosen for Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club. In 2017, Mbue was interviewed on Brittle Paper‘s inaugural edition of The Ask Series.

 

Brittle Paper congratulates Imbolo Mbue.