Canongate acquires Tilda Swinton’s first book, Material Evidence
In
brief
Tilda Swinton is one of the most celebrated actors of her generation. She is also an iconoclast, an artist, a style icon and, now, an author. Her characteristically original first book, Material Evidence, tells the story of her remarkable life. It will be published in Autumn 2028.
Material Evidence refuses the shape of a conventional life story, in favour of something closer to how memory actually works: associative, sensory, anchored in things. Rather than moving chronologically from childhood to the present, the book proceeds object by object: a christening dress, a letter, a wooden leg, a sweatshirt, a length of embroidery silk, a photograph.
Each piece of material evidence serves as a doorway which Swinton opens, describes what she finds – often with great wit and precision – and follows the thread wherever it leads: into family history, class and inheritance, Scottish identity, war and its aftermath, grief, collaboration, performance and the nature of art itself.
Material Evidence is a book about curiosity. A trail of breadcrumbs through the forest. And an essay in wonder: I hope that by the time it closes, its reader might feel affirmed and recharged with energy to value the difference between that elusive spirit that we each, uniquely, constitute, which changes constantly – evolving and developing – and that solid matter which stays the same in its essence – and consistently repays and feeds us, the world around us and all the things in it that make up our singular lives.
Tilda and I started talking about this project in the summer of 2025 and seeing it evolve and grow has been thrilling as with each month it becomes richer and more multi-layered. Not only do I think the book is conceptually brilliant, but Tilda is also a preternaturally gifted writer whose skills with language are exceptional and distinctive. Publishing Material Evidence is something that everyone at Canongate is enormously excited about and I am also delighted by the stellar partners we are attracting to it from around the world.
Jamie Byng
Canongate CEO
Tilda Swinton is a Scottish artist and performer celebrated for her work in both arthouse and mainstream cinema, from Derek Jarman’s experimental films to Orlando, Snowpiercer and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. She won the Academy Award and BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress for Michael Clayton (2007) and in 2021 received the Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement and an honorary Golden Bear from the Berlin Film Festival in 2025. That same year Swinton curated Ongoing, a multi-media exhibition at the Eye Museum in Amsterdam that celebrated her many lifelong collaborations and in 2026 she returned to the stage after more than 30 years, reprising the role of Ella/Max in Manfred Karge’s Man to Man at London’s Royal Court Theatre, a production that continues to Edinburgh, Berlin and New York. She has also read two acclaimed audiobooks for Canongate: Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain and Olivia Laing’s The Lonely City.
Publishers
Canongate acquired World Rights from David Kuhn at Aevitas Creative Management in partnership with Christian Hodell at Hamilton Hodell.
Canongate
World rights
Acquired by Jamie Byng, CEO, with Helena Gonda, Editorial Director, set to edit the book in house
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
North American rights
Acquired by Mitzi Angel
Kiepenheuer and Witsch
German rights
Acquired by Kerstin Gleba
I’ve long admired Tilda Swinton’s unique way of seeing things. The objects she contemplates in her enchanting book vibrate with meaning and memory—and through that contemplation she brings us the story of life. Material Evidence is full of humor, insight and appreciation for detail that might otherwise go unnoticed. I couldn’t be more delighted that Tilda Swinton joins FSG with this extraordinarily unusual and moving book
Mitzi Angel
Farrar, Straus and GirouxWe are thrilled to be the publishers of Tilda Swinton first book, after her much lauded exhibition Ongoing at Eye Museum in Amsterdam last year. It is not surprising, yet a true gift to all of us that her artistry extends to the book form. There is a soft density to her writing, a purified quality of observation that stays with you like a kind of elixir, and more importantly maybe, an invitation. To look back, around, ahead, with new clarity and interest.
Elik Lettinga
De ArbeiderspersI have long held a deep admiration for Tilda Swinton – the integrity of her choices, the freedom and whimsy that radiate from her work, the subtle blend of humility and strength that emanates from her public persona… I was astonished by Material Evidence, since it is so rare that an artist you admire so much exceeds your expectations. And yet this book project is truly unique, and destined to be a wonderful piece of writing, at once deeply moving and full of wit. I am so happy that this incredible author chose Flammarion to be her French publisher.
Sophie de Closets
FlammarionAudiobooks read by Tilda Swinton
Tilda Swinton has previously narrated two Canongate titles in audiobook. The Lonely City is Olivia Laing’s exploration of New York and the strange, alienating but also lovely state of solitude that accompanies life in big cities, as well as the art it has inspired.
The Living Mountain is Nan Shepherd’s masterpiece of nature writing, a poetic account of the beautiful, harsh, timeless and ever-changing landscape of the Cairngorms.
Listen to two short extracts here:
The Lonely City by Olivia Laing
