Longlisted for The Booker Prize 2022
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.
Publisher: Galley Beggar PressISBN: 9781913111397Dimensions: 200 x 130 mm
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