Louis de Bernières joins Salt with ‘Smelling of Rooks: Nine Years in the Norfolk Alps’

by Chris Hamilton-Emery

Salt Publishing is delighted to announce the acquisition of UK and Commonwealth rights (excluding Canada) to Smelling of Rooks: Nine Years in the Norfolk Alps, a new collection drawn from Louis de Bernières’ decade of Norfolk diaries. The deal was struck with Caroline Wood at Felicity Bryan Associates. Salt will publish the book as a paperback original on 21 September 2026, priced at £11.99.

Written between 2015 and 2024, these diaries offer an intimate, wry and richly textured account of life in the Waveney valley. Moving between essays, sketches, vignettes and fleeting reflections, de Bernières gathers his observations on friendship and family, ageing and memory, nature and music, writing, politics, belonging – and the strange consolations of daily life. The book sits somewhere between memoir, commonplace book and field notebook: a portrait of a place and a mind in motion.

Reflecting on the collection, Louis de Bernières said:

“I used to tell people I was from Surrey, but I have now lived in Norfolk for much longer than I have ever lived anywhere else, so now I tell people I’m from East Anglia (and I’m not moving). I am very happy that this book, born of Norfolk, is to be brought out by our best Norfolk publisher.”

Jennifer Hamilton-Emery, Director and Publisher at Salt, remarked:

“We are utterly thrilled to be publishing these remarkable diaries. They are funny, tender, surprising and richly textured – a warm celebration of Norfolk in all its weather and wonder. Readers will find a voice that is generous, curious and entirely itself. It is a joy and a privilege to bring this book into the world.”

De Bernières is one of Britain’s most widely read and acclaimed novelists, with global sales in the millions and translations in more than thirty languages. Best known for the international success of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, he has written across fiction, poetry, short stories, music and children’s literature, establishing himself as a singular and enduring presence in contemporary British writing.

For Salt, Smelling of Rooks marks a particularly resonant publication: a celebrated national author joining an independent press proudly rooted on the Norfolk coast. These diaries offer a vivid sense of a life lived in and through place – full of humour, candour and the quiet lyricism of the everyday.

Smelling of Rooks will be published on 21 September 2026.