A 40-year old novel about a deadly virus by Stanley Johnson, the Prime Minister’s father, is to be republished after recently got into the spotlight again. Interestingly, The Virus, first published in 1982 by the American A THRILLER, apparently predicted the emergence of a virus similar to the novel coronavirus (Covid-19).
Out of print and no longer available in bookstores, except for the used versions on Amazon, the book talks about the spread of a mysterious disease in the late 1960s, with events look very similar to what we are seeing today: a virus originates from a zoo in New York, forcing US airports to shut down.
Scientists found out that the source of the disease is green monkeys believed to have come from the Congo. The world, led by the American President, moves to eliminate these monkeys and save humanity from death, amid interesting events made by politicians, spies, corrupt drug company executives, scientists, doctors, and journalists who are thirsting for the truth.
Jonathan Lloyd, Johnson’s literary agent at Curtis Brown, urges British publishers to rebuy the copyrights of the novel, with the demand for it is expected to be great, especially since it was previously published in the United States and readers in the rest of the world have not heard much about it. Lloyd also believes translating the book to other languages will be lucrative for publishers.
