Affirm acquires Williams’s “The German Ward”
Affirm Press has acquired world rights to The German Ward, a “breathtaking historical love story” by Pip Williams, with US rights sold to Ballantine and UK rights to Chatto & Windus.
The German Ward follows an English nurse and German doctor who fall in love in France in 1915. “He is a prisoner of war; she has never cared for rules,” said Affirm. “Their love is visceral and urgent, forbidden and doomed, and it would have gone unrecorded if not for a series of drawings found more than a century later.
“At first the drawings seem insignificant, but the woman who finds them glimpses moments of intimacy and can’t look away. The images become part of a puzzle she wants to solve: who were the lovers, what became of them, and what story of war was the artist trying to tell?”
Pip Williams is the author of The Dictionary of Lost Words and The Bookbinder of Jericho. She is “one of Australia’s bestselling authors, with more than 500K books sold through Bookscan”, according to Affirm, which said The German Ward “shows one of Australia’s most significant writers reaching the height of her skills”.
Williams said, “Some characters insist you tell their story. Tilda Taylor – actress, suffragette and difficult woman – is one of them. But when I began to write it, I realised her story was not what I thought it would be. It has surprised me, moved me and made me blush. Now that it is written, I can’t wait to share it.”
According to publisher Ruby Ashby Orr, The German Ward “really is Pip Williams’s best book yet”.
“Like its predecessors, it’s supremely insightful, exploring a moment in history with beauty and intelligence”, Ashby Orr continued. “But the intensity of feeling, the humour and wisdom in this novel have floored me many times over. I think about Tilda and Hugo a lot and their humanity despite the chaos they live through always leaves me hopeful. I know it will do the same for other readers.”
Affirm plans to publish The German Ward in Australia on 29 September 2026.
Category: Local news Rights and acquisitions
