World rights to TWELVE DAYS OF JAMAICAN CHRISTMAS, written by Giller-nominated author of FRYING PLANTAIN and RIVER MUMMA Zalika Reid-Benta, and illustrated by Mariyah Rahman has sold to Lynne Missen at Tundra Books.
This picture book is a new take on the classic Twelve Days of Christmas song, but to the tune of Jamaican Christmas dishes.
Publication is scheduled for fall of 2025!
Zalika Reid-Benta is a Toronto-based writer whose first novel, River Mumma, was a Cityline Book Club pick, was named one of Indigo’s Top 100 Best Books of the Year, appeared on CBC’s Best Canadian Fiction of 2023 list, and was praised by Publishers Weekly in a starred review as “a rich and sometimes even dizzying brew that marks the emergence of a powerful new voice”. Her debut short story collection, Frying Plantain, won the Danuta Gleed Literary Award and the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for Literary Fiction. It was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and it was shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award, the White Pine Award, and the Trillium Book Award. Zalika Reid-Benta received an M.F.A. in fiction from Columbia University, was a John Gardner Fiction Fellow at the Breadloaf Writers’ Conference, and is an alumnus of the Banff Centre Writing Studio.
Amy Tompkins at Transatlantic Agency represented Zalika Reid-Benta, and Christy Ewers at The CAT Agency represented the illustrator.
Congratulations Zalika!