At the Pontas Agency, we are incredibly excited to announce that, just over a week after being out on submission, Musih Tedji Xaviere’s debut novel These Letters End in Tears was pre-empted by Megha Majumdar at Catapult for English rights for North America including audio. English rights for the UK & Commonwealth excluding Canada were sold to Jacaranda Books. Publication is slated for early 2024.
Megha Majumdar said: “This is the kind of book that readers will want to discuss with one another, that they'll want to press into the hands of their friends. What a truly special book, so unforgettable and wrenching.”
With These Letters End in Tears, a novel about undying love and about the complexities and dangers of being queer in Cameroon, Musih Tedji Xaviere was one of the joint winners of the first Pontas & JJ Bola Emerging Writers Prize 2021. All other rights, including film & TV, are available and handled by the Pontas Agency.
Set in a country where being gay is punishable by law, These Letters End in Tears is the heart-wrenching forbidden love story of a Christian girl with a deviant heart and a Muslim girl leading a double life.
The novel follows two young women, Bessem and Fatima, after a chance encounter leads to a romance between them. Despite living in homophobic Cameroon, the two fall completely in love with each other and start the relationship that will mark their lives forever.
Living in Cameroon, a country where same-sex relationships are punishable by law, the odds are stacked against Bessem and Fatima from the start. And when Fatima’s older brother, an Islamic extremist, finds out about their affair, he intervenes by physically assaulting them during a police raid at the only gay bar in town. After spending three days in jail, Fatima goes missing without a trace. Bessem is left with only rumors of her whereabouts. Was Fatima banished from the Muslim community? Did she get married off like her family suggests, or are they using these excuses to cover up something sinister?
Thirteen years later, Bessem is now a university professor leading a relatively quiet life, occasionally, and secretly, dating other women. However, she has never forgotten Fatima. After spotting a mutual friend for the first time in years—the last person who may have seen Fatima—Bessem embarks on a winding journey that will force her to face her worst fears.
Musih Tedji Xaviere, born August 1989, is a Cameroonian-based writer, activist, and Moth Storyteller. She is an alumna of the Goethe-Institut, the Moth, and the African Women Development Fund writing programs. With her debut novel, These Letters End in Tears, she won the 2021 Pontas and JJ Bola Emerging Writer’s Prize, and her short story, Clever Girl, has appeared in Odd Magazine. She has been mentored by authors Yewande Omotoso, William Moore and JJ Bola.
For more information, please contact Anna Soler-Pont (anna@pontas-agency.com).