Nicola Chang
I joined DHA in 2020 and I represent prize-winning writers of literary and general fiction, non-fiction and poets. My authors include Sara Ahmed, Raymond Antrobus, Jacqueline Crooks, Emma Glass, Leone Ross, Saba Sams and Kae Tempest. I am a recipient of London Book Fair’s Trailblazer Award and a Bookseller Rising Star.
My authors have won or been nominated for the BBC National Short Story Award, Booker Prize, Costa Book Awards (now Nero), Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award, Dylan Thomas Prize, Edge Hill Prize, Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize, Forward Prize, Goldsmiths Prize, Granta Best of Young British Novelists, Jhalak Prize, Orwell Prize, Sunday Times Short Story Award, Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, Ted Hughes Award, T. S. Eliot Prize, Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize, White Review Poet’s Prize, White Review Short Story Prize, Women’s Prize for Fiction, Writers’ Prize (formerly Rathbones Folio) and many more.
I am actively taking on new and emerging writers across genres and I am also open to hearing from mid-career and established authors who are seeking a new approach to their work.
For me, the best writers are those who are trying to understand life and society and get at the truth of experience as it is felt. An original voice is what I respond to first and foremost. Writers who are unlike others and who are challenging the idea of what a literary novel—and sentence—is and can do really excite me. I also love propulsive character-driven novels with intricate plots, unforgettable set pieces and dazzling dialogue. Some examples include Anna Burns, Gwendolyn Riley, Rachel Cusk, Annie Ernaux, Katie Kitamura, Elif Batuman, Elena Ferrante, Jeffrey Eugenides and Jonathan Franzen. Close to Home by Michael Magee is a recent debut I’ve admired. From experiments in form that defy easy definition, vernacular-inflected realism to the tragicomic, the weird and ethereal, I am drawn to emotional complexity and compelling, transformative storytelling that contends with the darkness as well as the light.
In non-fiction I am interested in narrative-driven, persuasive perspectives, a unique, fearless voice and the interplay between the personal and the political. I am keen to work with early career scholars and researchers who are within or adjacent to the academy. I would also be excited to hear from critics and writers who are thinking deeply, universally and urgently about the lives of others, society and the world and such subjects as the arts, food, family, language, creativity, sport, the body, work, travel and music. If they can do this provocatively and humorously, then all the better.
If you would like me to consider your work, please submit to nicolasubmissions@davidhigham.co.uk following our submisson guidelines. Please note I don’t consider poetry collections unless the poet has already been substantially published.
I am assisted by Emmanuel Omodeinde.
Precise, perspicacious books that examine and play with selfhood and the nature of identity
Novels set in London, novels set in other parts of the UK
Fiction about love, desire, obsession (A Room with a View, Giovanni’s Room, Happy All the Time) and the dynamics between siblings, parents and children—the idea of “the difficult romance of the family”—(On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Shuggie Bain, Elizabeth Strout)
Writing with a global, transnational sensibility; places and characters not often represented in literature; stories concerning community and society
Select short story collections and novellas; poets looking to develop their prose practice
New generation and established critics and thinkers who want to write books whether fiction or non-fiction
Cookbooks—beautiful, timeless texts and recipes that are returned to again and again; food writing—what we do and don’t think about when we are in the kitchen, around the dining table, on the sofa and eating out
Precise, perspicacious books that examine and play with selfhood and the nature of identity
Novels set in London, novels set in other parts of the UK
Fiction about love, desire, obsession (A Room with a View, Giovanni’s Room, Happy All the Time) and the dynamics between siblings, parents and children—the idea of “the difficult romance of the family”—(On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Shuggie Bain, Elizabeth Strout)
Writing with a global, transnational sensibility; places and characters not often represented in literature; stories concerning community and society
Select short story collections and novellas; poets looking to develop their prose practice
New generation and established critics and thinkers who want to write books whether fiction or non-fiction
Cookbooks—beautiful, timeless texts and recipes that are returned to again and again; food writing—what we do and don’t think about when we are in the kitchen, around the dining table, on the sofa and eating out
