Faber to publish Unsung by Leah Broad
By Faber Editor, 1 September 2026
Faber is delighted to announce the acquisition of Unsung: Trailblazing Women Musicians of the Second World War by Leah Broad, a ‘prize-winning rising star of broadcast and biography’.
The book was acquired as part of a two book deal from John Ash, formerly of PEW Literary, now at Creative Artists Agency. Faber acquired World All Languages and will publish in February 2027.
Described as ‘a history of World War Two as you have never heard it before’, Unsung resurrects the lost stories of pioneering women who entertained the troops, secretly fought for their country and kept hope alive on the home front. It features dancer, singer and intelligence agent Josephine Baker; German Nazi pianist Elly Ney; British pianist Myra Hess; composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor; ballerina Tatiana Vecheslova; violinist Alma Rosé, conductor of the Auschwitz women’s orchestra, and Jazz band the International Sweethearts of Rhythm. Broad shows how these extraordinary women fought to perform, to create, to exist.
Faber said:
‘We are proud to be publishing this vivid, passionate work of historical storytelling. Unsung brings to life a remarkable range of ground-breaking women musicians with unforgettable lives – personal, cultural, political – and illuminates their wartime creativity to forge a radical new soundscape of the twentieth-century.’
Leah Broad said:
‘These women are so important for our understanding of culture in the Second World War. I’m thrilled to be bringing their lives and music to new readers.’
Dr. Leah Broad is the acclaimed author of Quartet: How Four Women Challenged the Musical World, which won the 2024 Royal Philharmonic Society Prize for Storytelling, among other awards. Winner of the 2015 Observer/Anthony Burgess Prize for Arts Journalism, her writing has appeared in the Guardian, Observer, New Statesman, Financial Times, and London Review of Books. A BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker, Broad is a frequent on-air guest and regularly speaks at events including the BBC Proms.
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The extraordinary forgotten history of women and music in World War Two by a rising star of broadcast and biography.