The UK and Commonwealth rights to Leila Aboulela’s latest novel, Lyrics Alley, have been acquired by publisher Weidenfeld & Nicolson for publication in 2011.

Leila Aboulela will be appearing at the 2010 Emirates Airline Festival of Literature. Her previous books include the Orange and IMPAC-longlisted The Translator, the Orange-longlisted Minaret and the short story collection Coloured Lights. Her short story "The Museum", from this collection, won her the first Caine Prize for African Writing in 2000. Three of Leila’s works have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4: adaptations of The Translator and “The Museum” in 2002, and her play The Mystic Life in 2003.

Editor Arzu Tahsin says Lyrics Alley "is one of the most accomplished and thrilling portraits ever written of Sudanese society just around the time of independence in the 1950s. It is a breathtaking portrait of one family trying to reconcile the strong pull of tradition and the vital need to move forwards in rapidly changing times. It features an epic landscape and a powerful cast of characters and gives a stunning portrait of a land and a time never so evocatively portrayed before. By turns I wept and celebrated the highs and terrible lows the family endured."