The McKernan Literary Agency & Consultancy

Adam Schwartzman

No Text Adam Schwartzman Adam Schwartzman is a 33-year-old South African novelist and poet. He started writing when he was 17, and has published four books with Carcanet, three books of poetry and an anthology of South African poetry. He was born in Johannesburg, and pent two years at an English boarding school, then five very literary years at Oxford. He returned to South Africa in 1999, spent some time as a researcher at the Centre for African Studies at the University of Cape Town, and was then a director at the South African Treasury until 2003. He is currently working in the United States.

He is just completing the final draft of his first novel, Eddie Signwriter.

Featured Title Eddie Signwriter When the body of Nana Aforiwaa, beloved town elder and renowned restaurant owner, is discovered in a stream under a bridge in the hills of Akwapim, suspicion immediately falls on Kwasi Edward Dankoh, the half-foreigner, who for months has been courting and, some say, corrupting her niece.

Banished to the house of his reclusive uncle in Accra, and shunned by his family, Kwasi Dankoh establishes himself as a signwriter - one of the many creators of hand-painted billboards, murals and signs that cover the towns and cities of West Africa. But when events once again turn against him, and Kwasi Dankoh disappears from Accra without a trace, it is left to his uncle to return to Akwapim, to try to uncover the story of his nephew’s love affair, disappearance, and ultimately the death of Nana Aforiwaa.

Set in the mist-covered hills of Akwapim, the suburbs of Accra, and along the migrant routes of West Africa, Eddie Signwriter is at once a story of survival in the face of adversity, and a meditation on the redemptive power of empathy.

Rights Contact Maggie McKernan maggie@mckernanagency.co.uk or Abi Fellowes abi@capelland.co.uk.

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