Whaleship Novel Leads Agents' Frankfurt Picks
A whaleship that left New Bedford in 1878 is heading for Frankfurt.
North Sun: Or, the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther by Ethan Rutherford is one of the titles rights sellers will push hardest at Frankfurter Buchmesse 2026, set for 7–11 October 2026. The pick comes from Marleen Seegers, co-founder and managing director of the California-based 2 Seas Agency, in a pre-fair round-up of agents' choices Publishing Perspectives.
The novel follows the crew of the Esther on a voyage to the Arctic. The mission mixes commercial whaling with a search for a missing captain. The book was published in the United States by Deep Vellum.
Seegers said 2 Seas Agency recently started representing worldwide translation rights for Deep Vellum, meaning it sells permission to publish the house's books in other languages. Three deals are already done for North Sun. Rights have been sold for World Spanish, Germany and Greece.
That is a fast start. Most translations sell one territory at a time.
Seegers named a second Frankfurt title with a very different history. 2 Seas Agency will promote Twenty Months in Auschwitz by Pelagia Lewinska. The book first appeared in French in 1945, a few months after the liberation of the camps.
A third title shows how the rights trade works behind the scenes. Seegers said 2 Seas Agency handles Noah's World, a French-language book, as sub-agents in the Netherlands, North America and Scandinavia. A sub-agent, in plain terms, is a local agency hired to sell rights in its own patch on behalf of another agency or publisher.
From Germany, foreign rights agent Andrea Vogel of Die Literarische Agentur Gaeb & Eggers named two literary picks. A foreign rights agent sells translation and other subsidiary rights to publishers in other markets.
The agency is promoting the debut novel by German poet, translator and essayist Uljana Wolf. It is also promoting Salon Mexico by Luis Munoz Oliveira, described as narrative nonfiction and intellectual history about Mexico in the 1920s and 1930s.
What makes this stand out for general readers is timing. Frankfurt is where many books change language long before they reach a shelf. A sale for Germany or World Spanish now can decide what gets translated, published and reviewed a year or two later.
Frankfurt remains the largest meeting of its kind. The 2025 fair drew 4,350 exhibitors and 238,000 visitors, with 3,500 events and 7,800 media representatives, according to the organiser. Czechia is Guest of Honour in 2026, meaning the country gets a spotlight programme, and the organiser lists a new hall concept and layout Frankfurter Buchmesse.
