We are delighted to announce the Serbian translation rights for Hello Friend We Missed You, the debut novel by Richard Owain Roberts.
In a first for Parthian, the rights have been secured in advance of the original English language publication and will see Roberts follow Jarett Kobek, Ben Lerner and Miranda July as the latest English-language novelist to have his work translated into Serbian.
Selected by The Irish Times as one of its books to look out for in 2020, Hello Friend We Missed You is a deeply poignant and bleakly comic novel about loneliness, the ‘violent revenge thriller’ category on Netflix, solipsism, rural gentrification, Jack Black, and learning to exist in the least excruciating way possible.
Partizanska Knjiga, who have also published translations of Will Self and Guillermo Arriaga, translated Richard’s short fiction collection All The Places We Lived in 2017.
Having followed Richard’s career since the first translation, Partizanska co-founder Vladimir Arsenic said, 'All The Places We Lived had a great impact on Serbian readership since its publication in 2017. It became one of the most quoted short story collections of Serbian social media, and justly so.'
The promotional book tour of Serbia for All The Places We Lived is the subject of the forthcoming documentary ULTRA from filmmaker Adam Christopher Smith.
Described by Niall Griffiths as 'at root a simple boy-meets-girl story [that] is transmuted into something uniquely astonishing through a wild and intrepid imagination', the Serbian release of Hello Friend We Missed You is scheduled for early 2021.
'I feel humbled and thank everyone at Partizanska for their trust,' Richard said of the latest translation. 'I also thank Wales Arts International, Arts Council Wales for helping me travel to Serbia in 2017, and I thank anyone who reads this novel.'
Hello Friend We Missed You will be released in October, however limited pre-release print copies are available now via the Parthian website. By ordering through the pre-order section, customers will receive their book straight away. Click HERE for your copy of Hello Friend We Missed You.
