HarperCollins Canada announces two-book deal with writer Donna Bailey Nurse

HarperCollins Canada announces two-book deal with writer Donna Bailey Nurse

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HarperCollinsCanada is thrilled to have acquired two works of non-fiction by celebrated Canadian literary critic, author and editor Donna Bailey Nurse: The Black Album (world rights, all languages) and an untitled memoir (world rights excluding UK, all languages). Both titles will be published under the imprint Patrick Crean Editions. Donna Bailey Nurse said of the acquisition, “I am overjoyed to have been signed by Patrick Crean of HarperCollins to write a history of Canada from the perspective of the Black Canadian family. The project is partly inspired by my early involvement with the Ontario Black History Society, where I interviewed dozens of older African Canadians about living, working and growing up Black in Canada. It will contribute to a growing body of literature committed to unearthing a truer, more complete chronicle of our beloved country, for Black people have played a significant role in the story of Canada from the very start. This history, part of a two-book deal, will be followed by a memoir of my Jamaican family. Both are dream projects for me. I am over the moon with excitement and gratitude.”

Bailey Nurse’s first book, The Black Album, is set to publish in Fall 2022. In it, Bailey Nurse will weave together the story of Black Canada, delving deeply into the tales of select families and individual Black Canadians, offering a profoundly original portrait of the Black Canadian family tree.

Bailey Nurse’s second book with Patrick Crean Editions is a poignant and fiercely engaged memoir about her Jamaican Canadian family.

Publisher and editor Patrick Crean said, “I have known Donna Bailey Nurse for many years and have been aware of the important work she has done as a critic and literary influence in Canadian letters. We are excited now to have signed Donna to a two-book deal for a memoir about her family and an important social history that focuses on the Black experience in Canada entitled The Black Album. We are thrilled to have Donna grace our list and look forward to working with her on these timely and most promising books.”

Donna Bailey Nurse is self-represented in Canada. The book deal was brokered by Donna Bailey Nurse and Patrick Crean.

Donna Bailey Nurse is a respected critic of Canadian literature and Black women’s writing from around the world. She has been a contributor for more than two decades to major publications, including The Globe and MailMaclean’sThe Walrus and The Boston Globe. She is a columnist for Canada’s leading book program, The Next Chapter, on CBC Radio, as well as a former lecturer at George Brown College, a cultural commentator and an author and editor. She lives in Toronto with her family.

ABOUT HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

Known worldwide for the quality of its list, HarperCollinsCanada is the proud home of many bestselling authors, including Esi Edugyan, Heather O’Neill, Lawrence Hill, Kamal Al-Solaylee, Mark Sakamoto, Ayelet Tsabari, Emily St. John Mandel, Tracey Lindberg, Tara Westover, Hilary Mantel, Rachel Cusk, Anthony Horowitz, Uzma Jalaluddin, Kim Fu, Carrianne Leung, Ellen Keith, Jael Richardson, Emma Donoghue, Helen Humphreys and Thomas King, among many more found at harpercollins.ca.

HarperCollins Publishers is the second-largest consumer book publisher in the world, with operations in 17 countries. With 200 years of history and more than 120 branded imprints around the world, HarperCollins publishes approximately 10,000 new books every year in 16 languages, and has a print and digital catalog of more than 200,000 titles. Writing across dozens of genres, HarperCollins authors include winners of the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Newbery and Caldecott Medals and the Booker Prize. HarperCollins, headquartered in New York, is a subsidiary of News Corp (Nasdaq: NWS, NWSA; ASX: NWS, NWSLV) and can be visited online at corporate.HC.com.

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