Blue Hunger

(Paperback)

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An electrifying descent from loneliness and grief into obsessive, all-consuming love, by an Italian literary star. 'When Xu bites me, when she has me in her teeth, naked and bad on top of me, everything is good.' In a skyscraper apartment overlooking Shanghai's blue-tinged, pulsating nightlife and filled with rotting food, two women swallow little yellow pills that will make all things dangerous feel safe. They're both running from a turbulent past. In abandoned factories and dilapidated slaughterhouses, Xu pushes Ruben to extremes of pleasure and pain that she has never experienced before, to a place where language breaks down and passion becomes consumption. Blue Hunger asks how we create our identities and how we escape them; it is a fever-dream of a novel, visionary and uncanny, that demolishes all taboos and wisely explores, in a wildly imaginative language, the twisted peaks of loss and desire. 'Viola Di Grado is, most importantly, a powerful and original writer; the fact that she also writes, movingly and with complexity, about members of the LGBT population, renders her work all the more singular.' -Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours 'To read Blue Hunger is to enter a dreamlike state, guided by irresistible, evocative writing, immaculate details, and vivid emotions dripping with desire. Viola Di Grado offers us a brilliant, highly immersive story about the need to consume and be consumed, love, messiness, and the power of language. Blue Hunger is a wholly compelling piece of art, and Viola Di Grado is a genius.' -Jami Attenberg, author of The Middlesteins 'Blue Hunger is a breezy yet dizzying fever-dream of a read. The narrator's voice is deceptively quiet. The book feels like it has a flame lighting it from underneath. It moves with a steady, compact agility, like a ship gesturing towards a mid-sea battle ... The final scene is a spectacular feat, managing to be both unexpected, and exquisitely tender.' -Jessie Tu, The Sydney Morning Herald

Author Bio

Viola Di Grado (Author) Viola Di Grado is an Italian author with works published in several countries. Born in Catania, Sicily, in 1987, she earned a Master's in East Asian philosophies at the University of London. With her first novel 70% Acrylic 30% Wool she became the youngest winner of Italy's Premio Campiello Opera Prima and the youngest finalist for the Premio Strega. Her novel Hollow Heart was shortlisted for the PEN Literary Awards. Her novel Fuoco al cielo won the Premio Viareggio Selezione della Giuria. She is also a literary translator- among others she has translated Joyce Carol Oates, Anne Boyer, and Patricia Highsmith. She lives in London. Jamie Richards (Author) Jamie Richards is the translator of over thirty graphic novels from Italian and Spanish, as well as books by Ermanno Cavazzoni, Igiaba Scego, Andrea Inglese, Giovanni Orelli, Serena Vitale, Giancarlo Pastore, and others. Her writing and translation have appeared in numerous online and print periodicals such as The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Massachusetts Review, The Florence Review, Firmament, World Literature Today, and Words Without Borders. A 2021 NEA fellow, she holds an MFA in Literary Translation from the University of Iowa and a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Oregon.