UQP acquires world rights to Suri Matondkar's Cheatercock

The memoir and critique, inaugural winner of the UQP Mentorship Prize for Under-represented Writers, will be published in July 2027.

University of Queensland Press has acquired world rights to Cheatercock: On the Ownership of English and Other Lies I've Been Sold by Suri Matondkar, the publisher announced on 28 October. UQP will release the book in July 2027.

The manuscript is the inaugural winner of the UQP Mentorship Prize for Under-represented Writers. Matondkar thanked the judges of the 2025 prize.

Matondkar grew up in Goa speaking her native language and came to Australia as an international student, drawn by her love of English and the writers who use it. The book combines memoir with critique, drawing on that experience to look at how language connects to power and identity. She treats English both as a means of control, through tests of so-called correct usage, and as a way to name depression, sexuality, trauma and love that she could not speak about in Goa. Song lyrics also run through the work.

UQP publishing director Ben Ball said the book questions assumptions about who controls language, and compared it to the work of Aravind Adiga, Nam Le, Sarah Malik and Michelle de Kretser.

"I am so joyful that my experimental little book has found a home," Matondkar said.