Faber Children’s to publish Akwaeke Emezi’s debut YA novel, Pet

Faber Children’s have acquired the rights to Akwaeke Emezi’s debut YA novel Pet, which asks the
important question – how do you save the world from monsters if no one will admit they exist?
Annie Eaton, covering for Faber Children’s Publisher Leah Thaxton, acquired UK and Commonwealth
rights from Alba Ziegler-Bailey and Ekin Oklap at The Wylie Agency and says:
‘It’s hugely exciting to welcome Akwaeke Emezi to the Faber YA list. Pet is a beautifully-written,
powerful novel, which raises fascinating questions around human behaviour and whether we could
ever live in a world free from evil. This book is really going to wake readers up and get them talking.’

Jam is taught that in her utopian world, all the monsters have been defeated, and evil has been
eradicated by people now known as Angels. But when a creature called Pet claws its way out of her
mother’s painting looking for a monster, Jam has to face the reality that something terrible lurks at
her friend’s house and challenge the denial in the world around her.

Akwaeke Emezi makes their young adult debut with Pet. An honoree for the National Book
Foundation’s 5 Under 35 List, a longlist nominee for the Carnegie Medal of Excellence, and a shortlist
nominee for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, Akwaeke continues to receive accolades,
including a longlisting for the 2019 Women’s Prize, and rave reviews for their adult debut
Freshwater. Born in Umuahia and raised in Aba, Nigeria, Akwaeke currently resides in liminal spaces.

Akwaeke, whose acclaimed novel Freshwater is also published by Faber, says:
‘It’s such a pleasure to have my first YA novel debut in the UK with Faber Children’s, I’m very excited
for readers to meet Pet and the characters within it, they’re very special to me and I hope they’ll be
just as special to you.’

Pet will be published as a paperback original on 7 November 2019.

Proof copies will shortly be available, and can be requested via nina.douglas@faber.co.uk