Flesh And Bone And Water

Author: Luiza Sauma

Stock information

General Fields

  • : $32.99 AUD
  • :
  • : 9780241978139
  • : Penguin Books, Limited
  • : Viking
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  • : 0.318
  • : December 2016
  • : 234mm X 153mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : 32.99
  • : April 2017
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  • :
  • : books

Special Fields

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  • :
  • : Luiza Sauma
  • :
  • : Paperback
  • : 417
  • :
  • : en
  • : 823/.92
  • :
  • :
  • : 240
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Barcode 9780241978139
9780241978139

Description

From an exciting new voice in literary fiction, a seductive, dazzling, atmospheric story of family, class, and deception set against the mesmerizing backdrops of Rio de Janeiro, the Amazon River, and London.


 


Andr is a listless Brazilian teenager and the son of a successful plastic surgeon who lives a life of wealth and privilege, shuttling between the hot sands of Ipanema beach and his family's luxurious penthouse apartment. In 1985, when he is just sixteen, Andr 's mother is killed in a car accident. Clouded with grief, Andr , his younger brother Thiago, and his father travel with their domestic help to Belem, a jungle city on the mouth of the Amazon, where the intense heat of the rainforest only serves to heighten their volatile emotions. After they arrive back in Rio, Andr 's father loses himself in his work, while Andr spends his evenings in the family apartment with Luana, the beautiful daughter of the family's maid.


 


Three decades later, and now a successful surgeon himself, Andr is a middle-aged father, living in London, and recently separated from his British wife. He drinks too much wine and is plagued by recurring dreams. One day he receives an unexpected letter from Luana, which begins to reveal the other side of their story, a story Andr has long repressed.


 


In deeply affecting prose, debut novelist Luiza Sauma transports readers to a dramatic place where natural wonder and human desire collide. Cutting across race and class, time and place, from London to Rio to the dense humidity of the Amazon, Flesh and Bone and Water straddles two worlds with haunting meditations on race, sex, and power in a deftly plotted coming-of-age story about the nature of identity, the vicissitudes of memory, and how both can bend to protect us from the truth.

Reviews

Luiza Sauma's debut novel is that rare thing: a completely absorbing, brilliantly-designed, literary work. Her ability to cut across time and continents and to inhabit the physical and inner life of both a young Brazilian and that same man in middle-age is as dazzling as the novel's plot. The reveal, when it comes, is astonishing-sensuous, shocking, and completely earned. Anita Shreve, New York Times bestselling author of The Pilot's Wife Her writing is beautiful. I am sure I'll see her name on the spine of many a novel to come -- Rachel Seiffert, author of the Booker-shortlisted 'The Dark Room' Sauma's writing is sensual and evocative. Flesh and Bone and Water is a powerful depiction of sexual attraction and long lost loves; a haunting weave of Rio, the Amazon and present-day London -- Ardashir Vakil, award-winning author of 'Beach Boy' Luiza Sauma's first novel, Flesh and Bone and Water, is lush and evocative. The secret at the center came as a shocking surprise, and the characters were as haunted as I was. Sip a caipirinha and enjoy -- Lisa See

Author description

Luiza Sauma was born in Rio de Janeiro and raised in London. After studying English at the University of Leeds, she worked at the Independent on Sunday for several years. She has an MA in Creative & Life Writing from Goldsmiths, University of London, where she was awarded the Pat Kavanagh Award in 2014, and she has also been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize.