Penguin Press acquires Sapphire’s second novel

Sapphire

Today on Publishers Marketplace, Penguin Press announced the acquisition of Sapphire‘s second novel. Titled The Kid, it is about Abdul Jones, “the son of heroine, Precious, as he approaches manhood—alone, brutalized and with the soul of an artist.”

In the mid-’90s, Random House paid Sapphire $500,000 for her debut novel, Push—the gritty and stream-of-conscious story of Precious Jones, an obese, illiterate 16-year-old who is the victim of sexual abuse and incest. The novel went on to inspire Lee Daniels’ Academy Award-winning movie Precious. According to an interview in The Evening Standard, Push originally sold 280,000 copies (impressive alone)—and then Random House ordered a one-million copy printing when the movie came out in January of this year.

Sapphire never fails to render the hardest material comprehensible by coming from a place of love . . . In her second novel, she fearlessly explores the young life of an African American boy as he approaches manhood . . . It is an honor for The Penguin Press to have the opportunity to publish this extraordinary book.