Two Heads

Bloomsbury is to publish Two Heads, written by leading neuroscientists, professors Uta Frith and Chris Frith, in collaboration with their son, Alex Frith, and Daniel Locke, an artist and illustrator based in Brighton.

Publishing director Alexis Kirschbaum acquired UK and Commonwealth rights at auction from Patrick Walsh at Pew Literary. US rights were pre-empted by Daniel Loedel, Nan Graham and Sarah Goldberg at Scribner/Simon & Schuster.

Two Heads is a graphic biography that tells the story of the birth of neuroscience through the 40-year careers of professors Uta and Chris Frith. Dame Uta Frith, president of the British Science Association and a research psychologist, is one of the world’s leading researchers into autism and dyslexia, while Dr Chris Frith is a neuroscientist who has spent his research career working on schizophrenia, and also led the team which discovered the enlarged brains of London black cab drivers.

Worldwide, their work has shaped the way that researchers and clinicians think about the mind and brain and they are responsible for paradigm shifts across areas as wide-ranging as autism and schizophrenia research, consciousness studies, dyslexia and social neuroscience, according to the publisher.

Working with their son Alex Frith, a publisher at Usborne, and artist Daniel Locke, the professors examine in Two Heads the way that neuroscientific research now is concentrating on the fact we are a social species, whose brains have evolved to work co-operatively – with the ‘two heads’ aspects of the Friths’ own careers neatly tracking the future direction of neuroscience.