MUP acquires Stafford nonfiction

Melbourne University Publishing (MUP) has acquired world rights to The Wanted and Unwanted by Annabel Stafford, in a deal brokered by Jeanne Ryckmans at Key People Creative Management.

According to the publisher, “The Wanted and the Unwanted tells the story of the Wyndham Native Hospital, built three miles from a town that banned Aboriginal people.” At the hospital patients were imprisoned, left untreated and “subjected to experimental treatments without their knowledge and against their will”. Stafford tells the story of those who survived and transformed the hospital.

Based in Sydney, Stafford has been a journalist with the Age and the Australian Financial Review. She has taught in the UTS creative writing school, and completed a doctorate.

Stafford said, “I am thrilled that Melbourne University Publishing has bought the rights to publish The Wanted and The Unwanted and that this story will be more widely shared.”

MUP publisher Foong Ling Kong said, “For a while on a small stretch of red-dirt earth, the standard rule of law was suspended, leading to a denial of habeas corpus for Aboriginal people. Annabel takes readers into the past to piece together the stories of the public servants, politicians, legislators and doctors who enabled this. We are also there as she walks alongside former inmates today through the former hospital grounds to understand what such a past means to the present.”

The Wanted and the Unwanted is scheduled for publication in 2026.

Category: Local news Rights and acquisitions