McClelland & Stewart’s Senior Editor Anita Chong has acquired, in a 5-way auction, Canadian rights to two books of fiction by Journey Prize winner Shashi Bhat. The first, THE MOST PRECIOUS SUBSTANCE ON EARTH, is a darkly comic novel that, beginning in the mid-1990s, follows a young woman’s tumultuous journey from high school student to high school teacher, as she learns uncomfortable truths about how women are conditioned to make themselves silent. The two-book deal was arranged by Stephanie Sinclair.
Shashi Bhat’s fiction has appeared in The Malahat Review, The New Quarterly, The Dalhousie Review, Grain, PRISM International, Best Canadian Stories 2018, Journey Prize Stories 24 & 30, and other publications. She was the winner of the 2018 Journey Prize, and a 2018 National Magazine Award finalist for fiction. She is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, and in 2010, she was a finalist for the Bronwen Wallace Award. Her debut novel, The Family Took Shape (Cormorant, 2013), was a finalist for the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award. Shashi holds an MFA from The Johns Hopkins University and a BA from Cornell University. She is editor-in-chief of EVENT Magazine and teaches creative writing at Douglas College.