The High-Rise Diver - Softcover

Lucadou, Julia Von

Softcover

ISBN 10: 164286076X ISBN 13: 9781642860764

Publisher: World Editions, 2021

Synopsis

• Lead title with 10,000 AFP, extensive promtional plans & multi-city author tour

• Twice a year, the New Books in German US committee meets and votes on the 30+ titles to be submitted by German publishers for translation recommendations. Every single committee member voted The High Rise Diver as their #1 candidate for translation, while the response to the other 30 titles presented was tepid overall.

• Young, female author who spends a lot of time in NY. Great promotional opportunities!

• Uncomfortably realistic dystopia featuring two very different female characters

• While using elements from reader’s favorites such as Corpus Delicti, Handmaid’s Tale, Brave New World and Hunger Games, the story is highly original.

• The dystopian touches are kept light – just enough to provide an interesting framework and throw current societal issues into sharp relief.

• The plot itself centers on two women’s response to failure – intentional in one case, and desperately fought against in the other.

• Speaks to a US readership as concrete parallels can be drawn between city life and the middle- and upper class and the peripheries and the lower class. The widening income gap in America is an increasingly pressing topic, and the author captures the existential fear of losing everything by losing one’s job perfectly. The book can be read as a sharp satire on US society which crystalizes the pressure to perform and the economic divide in the country.

• Fresh and relevant title perfect for the significant surge of interest in works of dystopian fiction, in particular written by and for women (since we all feel that we suddenly live in a catastrophic dystopia which none of us thought was possible ...).

• The author’s experience in TV and Film make for a particularly visual read

About this title

About the Author

JULIA VON LUCADOU was born in Heidelberg in 1982. She studied film and theater at Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz and Victoria University of Wellington and earned her PhD in Film Studies in 2015. Lucadou worked as both an assistant director and a television editor prior to writing The High-Rise Diver, her debut novel, which was nominated for the Swiss Book Prize in 2018. She splits her time between Biel, New York, and Cologne.

Originally from New York, SHARMILA COHEN came to Berlin in 2011 as a Fulbright Scholar to complete an experimental translation project with local poets. She now divides her time between both cities. Cohen is an award-winning writer and German-to-English translator who has translated the works of several leading German-language authors. Her work has been featured in publications such as BOMB and Harpers, and her projects span from poetry and literary fiction to crime and children’s stories.

From the Back Cover

Riva is a "high-rise diver," a top athlete with millions of fans, and a perfectly functioning human on all levels. Suddenly she rebels, breaking her contract and refusing to train. Cameras are everywhere in her world, but she doesn't know her every move is being watched by Hitomi, the psychologist tasked with reining Riva back in. Unquestionably loyal to the system, Hitomi's own life is at stake: should she fail to deliver, she will be banned to the "peripheries," the filthy outskirts of society. For readers of The Handmaid's Tale, The Circle, and Brave New World, this chilling dystopia constructs a world uncomfortably close to our own, in which performance is everything.

"What makes Julia von Lucadou's novel so impressive is the accuracy with which she describes this high-gloss, modern, but by no means completely fictional world. Every detail is so precise that, lurking beneath the flawlessness of the text, the central theme of perfidious self-optimization seems to always be present." --Süddeutsche Zeitung

"Julia von Lucadou's science fiction is close. Against the backdrop of the gleaming images used to portray this Orwellian-style city-state, the tragic moments of direct human encounters take on a dimension of clever criticism." --Spiegel Online

From the Inside Flap

Riva is a "high-rise diver," a top athlete with millions of fans, and a perfectly functioning human on all levels. Suddenly she rebels, breaking her contract and refusing to train. Cameras are everywhere in her world, but she doesn't know her every move is being watched by Hitomi, the psychologist tasked with reining Riva back in. Unquestionably loyal to the system, Hitomi's own life is at stake: should she fail to deliver, she will be banned to the "peripheries," the filthy outskirts of society. For readers of The Handmaid's Tale, The Circle, and Brave New World, this chilling dystopia constructs a world uncomfortably close to our own, in which performance is everything.

"What makes Julia von Lucadou's novel so impressive is the accuracy with which she describes this high-gloss, modern, but by no means completely fictional world. Every detail is so precise that, lurking beneath the flawlessness of the text, the central theme of perfidious self-optimization seems to always be present." --Süddeutsche Zeitung

"Julia von Lucadou's science fiction is close. Against the backdrop of the gleaming images used to portray this Orwellian-style city-state, the tragic moments of direct human encounters take on a dimension of clever criticism." --Spiegel Online

Edition details

• Publisher: World Editions
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 164286076X
• ISBN 13: 9781642860764
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288