ANGEL OF THE MOUNTAINS

Paul Maunder

RIGHTS AVAILABLE: North American, Translation, Film/TV and all other rights handled by the bks Agency

RIGHTS SOLD: UK & Commonwealth/Quercus

Does victory do more harm than good? In his new book, Paul Maunder explores the strange story of Charly Gaul, winner of the 1958 Tour de France. At the end of his cycling career Gaul disappeared, becoming a hermit living in a forest in Luxembourg (according to popular myth) In rediscovering Gaul’s life, Maunder finds an unlikely hero, a man who understood what he needed to do to stay sane in the aftermath of success.

Paul Maunder is an author and cycling journalist. His books Rainbows in the Mud, about the strange world of Belgian cyclocross, and The Wind at my Back, a memoir on the connections between landscape, cycling and creativity, are published by Bloomsbury. A regular contributor to Rouleur and Peloton magazines, Paul has also worked with Dan Bigham of the HUUB-Wattbike team on START AT THE END, a book about reverse-engineering success (Welbeck)

Paul is an alumni of the Royal Holloway Creative Writing programme, and the Faber Academy. His first novel The Atomics was longlisted for the 2020 Caledonia International Novel prize. Having escaped the ghetto of Henley-on-Thames, where he grew up, Paul now lives in south-east London with his wife, two children and many bikes.