Deborah Levy – My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein

Deborah Levy’s new novel paints a striking portrait of two women and two eras – and thus demonstrates once again why the British author is equally beloved by critics and readers alike.

How do we live with uncertainty, and what must we lose to become modern? In *My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein* (Aki 2026, translated from the English by Marion Hertle), the protagonist sets out to trace the footsteps of the grande dame of literary modernism, who welcomed guests such as Picasso and Hemingway to her Parisian salons. Yet the attempt to write an essay about Stein seems impossible, for the narrator knows both too much and too little about the avant-garde thinker. So she tries to work out what art, language and freedom must have meant in the early 20th century, but is repeatedly distracted by her Parisian friends.