AUGUST BLUE

245pp., paperback, Reprint, London, (2023) 2024

“This meditative novel starts at a flea market in Athens, where a pianist named Elsa, who recently interrupted her career after a disastrous concert, catches sight of a woman who seems to be her double . . . As the novel quickens to a climactic encounter between Elsa and her doppelgänger, it becomes a rumination on identity, desire, and the passage from self-effacement to self-discovery." The New Yorker

“Reading August Blue feels like playing a game. Nothing finds its way into a Deborah Levy novel without a reason, but those reasons are rarely obvious. Can you trace the clues she leaves, like breadcrumbs through the woods? . . . Levy builds her worlds as though concocting a dream sequence―and the effect is exhilarating ... August Blue holds the remarkable balancing act that is key to Levy’s writing: perfect precision at the sentence level combined with a dedication to exploring the slipperiness of reality.”  Ellen Peirson-Hagger, The I (UK)

Deborah Levy was born in Johannesburg in 1959. She emigrated to the UK in 1968. She is the author of eight novels, including Swimming Home, Hot Milk and The Man Who Saw Everything; the short story collection, Black Vodka, and a trilogy of memoirs composed of Things I Don't Want to Know, The Cost of Living and Real Estate.