Tuesday, 23 September 2025 Books+Publishing @booksandpublishing
The University of Queensland Press (UQP) has acquired world rights to Angela O’Keeffe’s third novel, Phanton Days, via Martin Shaw Literary.
In this forthcoming novel, the story is narrated from the perspective of a book. ‘Isabel attends a book launch where she purchases the aforementioned book, before heading off on a short trip to London with a new boyfriend, Lewis,’ the publisher said. ‘Upon returning to Sydney, Isabel accidentally leaves the book in a cab, and Lewis takes it home. There it will learn concerning information about Lewis’s past, such that the book realises that Isabel may not be safe and it may need to intervene to protect her.’
O’Keeffe is the author of Night Blue (Transit Lounge, 2021), which was shortlisted for the 2022 UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing and the 2022 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction, and The Sitter (UQP, 2023), which won the 2024 Christina Stead Prize for Fiction and was longlisted for the 2024 Miles Franklin Literary Award.
O’Keeffe said, ‘As a writer it’s a given that I believe in the power of literature to change and even save lives. But I wondered how, in a novel, it might look to pull at one tiny strand of that power, to draw it into the light.’
UQP publisher Aviva Tuffield said of the author, ‘She is the master of the quirky, mesmerising narrative voice, with Blue Poles telling much of her debut novel; and Hortense, the wife of artist Paul Cézanne, playing a key role in The Sitter. Now with Phantom Days, Angela plays with the oft-quoted idea that “a book can save your life”. This spellbinding, highly original novel does not disappoint.’
UQP plans to release Phantom Days in May 2026.
Photo credit: Camille Walsh.
Category: Local news Rights and acquisitions