That's All I Know

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Nineteen-year-old Lea is from a village that is out of time, out of jobs and out of hope. She and her friends, however, are vivid and electric with life. They yearn, they dance, they fuck, they fight. And around them, a world that isn't quite our own vibrates with strangeness and threat.

Now Lea is here, sitting on a bench, telling a silent stranger her life story. Because yesterday, change was finally unavoidable.

A novel of rural entrapment and coming of age, Elisa Levi's That's All I Know bears the traces of Beckett and Lorca, rings with the echo of folktales and has a fierce, unapologetic vitality at its heart. Startlingly odd and deeply moving, it is the work of a profound and singular talent.

Reviews

'A dazzling debut . . . Often funny, often tragic, constantly utterly berserk. Elisa Levi is truly an author to watch.' Foyles, Top Ten Books of May
'A novel capable of lethal shocks and bold transfigurations . . . Unconventional and memorable.' Kirkus
'A beautifully rendered narrative that combines magical realism with social commentary.' Dazed, The 12 most anticipated novels of 2025
'Elegant, sly, and enrapturing.' Catherine Lacey
'Funny and strange, quirky and heartbreaking, voice-driven and philosophical, magical and very real. As Little Lea tells her tale of family, home, and the end of the world, she casts a quiet spell over me.' Rebekah Bergman
'A brilliant feat of authorial control; Elisa Levi has created a devastating delight.' Maya Binyam
'A book about the inability to leave the place where you were born . . . It reminded me of Miguel Delibes' The Way and Carson McCullers' The Member of the Wedding . . . it is very beautiful.' Miqui Otero
'An utterly engaging tale of unendurable sadness and quiet desperation and of how we live with the decisions we make. Highly recommended.' ArtsHub
'Lyrical and alarming.' 5*, Foreword
'Ambitious and beguiling.' Sunday Post
'Reminded me of the excitement, imaginativeness, and inventiveness of the Hispanic literature I studied in college. If you enjoyed the magical realism of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garca Mrquez, you will be just as invested as I was in That's All I Know.' Cond Nast Traveller

Author Bio

Elisa Levi is a playwright, poet and writer. She studied at RADA and now divides her time between being the director of a MFA in Editing and Publishing, and writing residencies all over the world. Yo no s de otras cosas (That's All I Know) is her debut in the English language.

Christina MacSweeney is an award-winning literary translator, working mainly in the areas of Latin American fiction, essays, poetry and hybrid texts. She has translated works by such authors as Valeria Luiselli, Jazmina Barrera, Daniel Saldaa Pars and Elvira Navarro. In 2024, she was granted a Sundial Literary Translation Award for Vernica Gerber Bicecci's The Company and in 2025 her translation of Clyo Mendoza's Fury was a finalist for the Premio Valle Incln.