New Bridget Jones Novel To Be Published In November

Author Helen Fielding To Appear at BookExpo in June

NEW YORK, February 5, 2013 — Helen Fielding — the British writer whose wildly popular newspaper column depicting a 30-something single woman living in London in the 1990s became a worldwide book publishing sensation — has written a new novel. The book, also in the voice of Bridget Jones, will be published in the U.S. by Alfred A. Knopf in November, with a first printing of 250,000 copies. The announcement was made today by Sonny Mehta, Knopf Chairman and Editor in Chief.

First published in 1996, Bridget Jones’s Diary was an international bestseller that is credited with launching the chick lit phenomenon. It was followed in 1999 by a sequel, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. Together, the two novels sold over 15 million copies and were published in 40 different countries, and they were both adapted into successful films staring Renee Zellweger, Hugh Grant, and Colin Firth.

“Few writers can rival Helen Fielding when it comes to fully capturing the modern woman,” said Mehta. “Her writing is both funny and heartfelt, and her observations about life are piercing and mordantly rendered. I have been waiting a long time to see what’s next for Bridget Jones, and I am beyond thrilled that she’s back.”

The new novel represents a totally new phase in Bridget’s life. “My life has moved on,” says Fielding, “and Bridget’s will move on, too.” The story will be set in present-day London, with Bridget at a later stage in her life. “I hope people will have as much fun reading it, as I am writing it.”

In anticipation of the book’s official publication in November, Fielding will appear as a breakfast speaker on Saturday, June 1st at BookExpo America, the annual booksellers convention to be held in New York.

The novel will also be published as an eBook and as a Random House Audiobook.

Alfred A. Knopf is the flagship imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, which is a division of Random House, Inc., whose parent company is Bertelsmann AG, the international media company. For more information about Alfred A. Knopf, visit the website http://www.aaknopf.com.

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Contact: Paul Bogaards, Executive Director of Media Relations
212-572-2177 | pbogaards@randomhouse.com