Teju Cole has a new novel out this Fall! Here’s the cover…
Teju Cole’s new novel Tremor will be published by Random House this October. Cole told Lit Hub:
The best book designs are, in my view, not illustrative. They stand as their own thing in some sort of relation to the book, at a cooperative angle to it. I feel lucky to have worked with the designer Alex Merto several times before. He’s a subtle designer who always comes up with something surprising. My ideal of a novel is a work of prose fiction that reveals what it is up to quite slowly. There’s the title, which gives some information, but not much. And there’s cover design, which tells us a little more, but only a little more. And then you read the first chapter, and the second, and so on. Every element of the book works in concert to provide an experience that is not easily summarizable. In a world where most things tend to be overstated, it feels like a wonderful privilege to get to make something a bit oblique, something with patient and accretive power. And Alex really got that in his design for Tremor.
Here’s the cover:
And here’s more about the book from the publisher:
A weekend spent antiquing is shadowed by the colonial atrocities that occurred on that land. A walk at dusk is interrupted by casual racism. A loving marriage is riven by mysterious tensions. And a remarkable cascade of voices speak out from a pulsing metropolis. We’re invited to experience these events and more through the eyes and ears of Tunde, a West African man currently working as a teacher of photography on a renowned New England campus. He is a reader, a listener, a traveler, drawn to many different kinds of stories: stories from history and epic; stories of friends, family, and strangers; stories found in books and films. Together these stories make up his days. In aggregate these days comprise a life.
Designer Alex Merto says of the cover: “As a designer, getting the chance to work on one of your favorite writer’s books is an incredible experience. For me, that writer was Teju Cole. His unique style of storytelling has always resonated with me. What made this project even more special was the chance to connect directly with Teju throughout the process. In this industry, it is unusual to have that kind of exchange with an author, but I believe it enhanced our final jacket.”
Teju Cole’s Tremor will be published by Random House October 17, 2023. Preorder here.
