Emma Leong
Emma is a Literary Agent in the London office, building a list of fiction and non-fiction. Her publishing career started here at Janklow and Nesbit in 2019, with a background in both Law and Psychology. She is editorially focused, actively taking on debut writers and keen to build and nurture international careers for them, working very closely with the New York office and Translation Rights team.
Her clients include Chukwuebuka Ibeh, Rupert Dastur, Olivia Petter, Helena Echlin, Anise Starre, Dr Ally Louks, Warona Jay, Grace Murray, Joycelyn Longdon, and on behalf of the US office, Erica Berry, Aisha Muharrar, Dawnie Walton, Vanessa Ogle, Katherine Min to name a few.
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In fiction, I admire novels that are psychologically astute, enduring, and true to the human condition, where I can feel deeply for its characters and their moral complexities. I am currently looking for a literary romance, novels with a powerful love story at their heart: think Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman, The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. I’m also drawn to books that never shy away from books that explore the all-too-real issues, yet can find the light and play in its chaos: novelists I admire in this space include Ruth Ozeki, Jonathan Franzen, Elizabeth Strout.
I am also looking for literary book club fiction that is witty, deeply thoughtful, and gets into the heart of modern love, life, friendship, heartbreak, family. Books like Ann Napolitano's Hello Beautiful, Curtis Sittenfeld's Romantic Comedy, Coco Mellors’ Cleopatra and Frankenstein, Holly Gramazio’s The Husbands, Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson do this brilliantly for me. I would too love to see anything propulsive, forensic, ripe with suspense and mystery - think The Secret History, The Handmaid's Tale, The Paper Palace. I also have a real soft spot for coming-of-age stories.
On the more commercial end, I am always looking for beautifully constructed, heart-racing thrillers that can question the reader's deepest fears, desires, perceptions: think Tracey Sierra's Nightwatching, Freida McFadden's The Housemaid, Celeste Ng's Little Fires Everywhere. And would love to see any story that can take the reader to endless possibilities and breathtaking suspense, love, or adventure: I find this in Matt Haig's The Midnight Library, Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park, VE Schwab's Vicious, and Beth O'Leary's The No Show.
In non-fiction, I focus on books that encourage readers to be more understanding to themselves and the world they live in, looking for razor-sharp, expert-driven insight into the human condition and how we can understand human life. Favourite reads include Susan Cain’s Quiet, Rebecca Solnit’s Hope in the Dark, Cat Bohannon’s Eve, Gabor Mate's The Myth of Normal, and bell hooks’ All About Love.
I am also running the Janklow & Nesbit UK Literary Love Stories Fiction Prize this year, please click here to find out more: https://janklowandnesbit.co.uk...