Deborah Levy

Book premiere.

The mesmerising new novel August Blue about a broken identity and the desperate search for belonging in the world is a masterpiece of style and content by Deborah Levy:
At the height of her career, concert pianist Elsa M. Anderson - former child prodigy, now in her thirties - walks off the stage in Vienna, mid-performance.
Now she is in Athens, watching as another young woman, a stranger but uncannily familiar - almost her double - purchases a pair of mechanical dancing horses at a flea market. Elsa wants the horses too, but there are no more for sale. She drifts to the ferry port, on the run from her talent and her history.
So begins a journey across Europe, shadowed by the elusive woman who bought the dancing horses.

A dazzling portrait of melancholy and metamorphosis, August Blue uncovers the ways in which we seek to lose an old story, find ourselves in others and create ourselves anew.


There are few writers who are loved by critics and readers alike with such devotion as British writer Deborah Levy. Born in South Africa in 1959, she emigrated to England with her family as a child. Today she is one of the most important literary voices of the present day. Her plays are performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company, among others. She has been honored with numerous awards for her literary work, which moves between fiction and autobiography, including the Prix Femina 2020. Her novels Swimming Home (2011) and Hot Milk (2016) were on the Man Booker Prize shortlist.