Atria Books to Publish
Abrams’ The Lost
Diary of Don Juan
NEW YORK, NY/03/13/06Atria Books has purchased North American rights to two novels by author Douglas Carlton Abrams, Judith Curr, executive vice-president and publisher announced today. Vice-President and Executive Editorial Director Emily Bestler acquired the rights from Heide Lange of Sanford Greenburger Associates. Atria will publish the first of the two books, The Lost Diary of Don Juan in Spring 2007.
Set in Golden Age Spain, The Lost Diary of Don Juan is an historical novel that recounts the life of the world’s most famous lover from his secret childhood in a convent to his life as a libertine to his inescapable fall into the madness of love. The diary reveals a man far more seductive than the one that came to be known through the legend and the works of Molina, Moliere, and Mozart. Frank McCourt calls it “a magic carpet of a book, a picaresque adventure that will have you clawing yourself with pleasure.”
“Doug Abrams not only paints a perfect picture of the tumultuous times of the Spanish Renaissance,” Bestler said, “but he masterfully captures the voice of one of history’s most notorious figures with depth, intelligence and sensual delight .”
Doug Abrams spent many years as an editor at the University of California Press and HarperSanFrancisco. He is the coauthor of books on love, sexuality and spirituality, including books with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Yogacharya B.K.S. Iyengar, and Taoist Master Mantak Chia. This is his first novel.
In addition to being acquired by Atria Books, there was instantaneous interest in The Lost Diary of Don Juan from foreign publishers, with a dozen sales swiftly made by the agency’s Teri Tobias in collaboration with their co-agents in: Brazil, Finland, Germany, Greece, Holland, Italy, Israel, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the UK.
In 2005, Atria published 18 New York Times bestsellers, including Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult, Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston, Driven From Within by Michael Jordan, Afterburn by Zane, Goodnight Nobody by Jennifer Weiner, and Consent To Kill by Vince Flynn. Atria has now published 72 New York Times bestsellers in its short four year history.
Atria Books is an imprint of Simon & Schuster, a part of the CBS Corporation, a global leader in the field of general interest publishing, dedicated to providing the best in fiction and nonfiction for consumers of all ages, across all printed, electronic, and audio formats. Its divisions include Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing, Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, Simon & Schuster Audio, Simon & Schuster Online, and international companies in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit our website at www.simonsays.com
