Pre-Order Now! After Sappho, by Selby Wynn Schwartz
Placed somewhere between literary biography and experimental fiction, After Sappho is the literary event of the year! Selby Wynn Schwartz’s inimitable and indescribably brilliant After Sappho traces the influence of the legendary Greek poet down through the centuries and into the modern age. Focusing on the lives of 20th and 21st century female authors, Wynn Schwartz depicts not only the long, painful, and arduous journey of women’s liberation, but also the indispensable developments in literature and culture that this journey has resulted in. From Rina Faccio to Romaine Brooks to Gertrude Stein, Woolf, Colette, and Poletti, Wynn Schwartz adopts the voices and narratives of these trailblazing authors, unifying their aims, the hopes, and their dreams. A work which transcends our standard definitions of what fiction, indeed, what a book can be. Essential.
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Order your copy today directly through October Books or buy online through our bookshop store and we’ll get a commission on your purchase.
After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz
Paperback £9.9915/7/22
“What did we want? To begin with, we wanted what half the population had got by just being born.”
IT’S 1895. Amid laundry and bruises, Rina Pierangeli Faccio gives birth to the child of the man who raped her – and who she has also been forced to marry. Unbroken, she determines to change her name; and her life, alongside it.
1902. Romaine Brooks sails for Capri. She has barely enough money for the ferry, nothing for lunch; her paintbrushes are bald and clotted… But she is sure she can sell a painting – and is fervent in her belief that the island is detached from all fates she has previously suffered.
… In 1923, Virginia Woolf writes: I want to make life fuller – and fuller.
Told in a series of cascading vignettes, featuring a multitude of voices, After Sappho is Selby Wynn Schwartz’s joyous reimagining of the lives of a brilliant group of feminists, sapphists, artists and writers in the late 19th and early 20th century as they battle for control over their lives; for liberation and for justice.
Sarah Bernhard – Colette – Eleanora Duse – Lina Poletti – Josephine Baker – Virginia Woolf… these are just a few of the women (some famous, others hitherto unsung) sharing the pages of a novel as fierce as it is luminous. Lush and poetic; furious and funny; in After Sappho, Selby Wynn Schwartz has created a novel that celebrates the women and trailblazers of the past – and also offers hope for our present, and our futures.
Order your copy today directly from October Books or buy online through our bookshop store and we’ll get commission on your purchase.
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