Short Takes

The Death of Vishnu, the admired Norton novel by Manil Suri, has been optioned for the movies by Beth Dembitzer and Arena Pictures, with a young director of Indian descent, Siraj Jhaveri, attached to direct. The deal was put together by William Morris's Bill Contardi on behalf of literary agent Nicole Aragi at Watkins Loomis.... Diane Turbide, editorial director at Penguin Canada, has signed Ottawa journalist and author Lawrence Martin for a second volume of his biography of Canadian premier Jean Chrétien; the first, a bestseller, was published six years ago, and the new deal was a six-figure one, for publication in fall 2003.... A book called The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell has been signed by Jeffrey Krames, publisher at McGraw-Hill Trade; he bought world rights in the book, by San Francisco management professor Oren Harari, from agent Lynn Ly Johnston for publication next April.... Senior editor John Glusman at FSG has signed Mort Rosenblum, author of the house's award-winning Olives (1996), to do a similar book tracing the history and culture of Chocolate; Glusman bought world rights from agent Geri Thomas, for publication by Northpoint.... Patricia Moosbrugger, who has been representing independent literary presses for rights sales with her own agency, has joined the Stuart Krichevsky agency as literary agent and rights director; Moosbrugger began at Curtis Brown, and later managed sub rights for Golden Books and Walker.... In another appointment of interest to the rights world, Thomas A. Todd Jr. has joined Illinois-based Sourcebooks as rights sales manager; he was most recently sales manager at Globe Pequot Press.

Hot Deals will be on vacation next week.