Leper Colony Tale to Scribner
by John F. Baker -- Publishers Weekly, 8/27/2001
Scribner was the winner in another auction last week, when Lisa Drew, who has her own imprint at the house, prevailed over three other publishers to take a book called The Colonyby award-winning journalist (and current Outsidedeputy editor) John Tayman. Drew bought North American rights from agent David McCormickat IMG on the book, which is a study of the leper colony on the Hawaiian island of Molokai, covering its history, legends and stories of some of the many sufferers who have lived and died there. The colony still exists, though when the last of the current elderly inhabitants dies the island will become a national park. It has a history going back more than a century and was written about by Jack London and Robert Louis Stevenson, among others. Tayman will fill out his book with the journals and memories of past and present inhabitants. Planned pub date is late 2003 or early 2004.
