Ian McEwan is offering “the genuine opportunity of an afterlife.” The same promise is coming from the authors Margaret Atwood, Julian Barnes, Ken Follett, Hanif Kureishi, Will Self, Alan Hollinghurst and Zadie Smith. It’s not a new literary religion but an auction, to be held on Nov. 20 for the charity Freedom from Torture, during which 17 authors will sell the right to name characters in their upcoming novels.
Mr. Barnes, who is a patron of the charity, which works with torture survivors, was the first to offer a character to name, and he has been followed by an impressive group of his peers, who also include Pat Barker, Martina Cole, Tracy Chevalier, Sebastian Faulks, Adam Foulds, Robert Harris, Kathy Lette, Adam Mars-Jones and Joanna Trollope.
At least one writer has offered guidelines. Ms. Chevalier has asked for a name for a “tough-talking landlady of a boarding house in 1850s Gold Rush-era San Francisco.” Ms. Atwood is offering the possibility of either appearing in the novel she is currently writing, or in her retelling of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” to be published in a Vintage Books series in 2016.
Authors have sold naming rights for charity before. Stephen King auctioned a name for his 2006 novel “Cell,” (the character dies a gruesome death), and two fans recently paid $20,000 each to have their names used in George R.R. Martin’s “Game of Thrones” saga. The characters were killed, but the names live on.