More great news on the literary fiction front: Stewed Rhubarb Press has acquired the English rights to 101 Ways to Kill Your Husband, an oulipo-esque murder mystery written by Laura Lindstedt and Sinikka Vuola!
Stewed Rhubarb Press is a publisher based in Scotland-based publisher focusing mainly on poetry. A small, but inclusive publisher champions new and diverse literature and is not afraid to dive into experiments with form and structure.
This is the fifth foreign rights deal for this exceptional title, which has previously been sold to Denmark, France, Hungary and Turkey.
The book is a retelling of a murder case from 1981, when Anja B. from Finland took a shotgun to her Norwegian husband Thorvald’s chest and fired. He died immediately. On the 5th of May 1983 history was made as the District Court of Oslo not only released her from the murder charges but found her late husband guilty because of the physical abuse he had inflicted on her for years.
The writers break the dismal convention of crime stories that begin with the discovery of the body of a young woman. This time, it is the violent husband who dies – 101 times over. The variations of Lindstedt and Vuola dazzle the reader whilst they unravel a tragic story of domestic abuse that ended up in the tabloids.
Congratulations to the authors and the publisher!