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After Sappho

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After Sappho

By: Selby Wynn Schwartz
Narrated by: Joan Walker
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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.

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.©2022 Selby Wynn Schwartz (P)2022 W. F. Howes Ltd Genre Fiction Historical Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Women's Fiction Fiction
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Loved hearing these womens stories, the narrator was great too, important to reflect on the women who fought for what we have now

Great book

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There are so many characters, and somehow I didn’t discern much differentiation in terms of their personalities. I also found it very curious that there are no meaningful mother-daughter (or mother-son) attachment relationships alluded to or discussed, almost as if this may be a blind spot of the author. The narrator reads with a tone of airy, arched knowing, which is probably appropriate for a lot of the book but I really wished she’d mix it up a bit - I found it tedious eventually.

I really wanted to like this book but…

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I thought I'd love it based on the topic (Sappho + strong feminists women loving women) ... however I found this hard to follow at times. and although the narrator is overall fine, I just couldn't get past the fact that she clearly doesn't speak Italian or French and this book has losds of words in those languages.... I felt this book needed someone who would pronounce them correctly as they are quite central

Interesting topic but struggled to get through it

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