Shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize & the Orwell Prize for Fiction

A Sunday Times Fiction Book of the Year

'a serious accomplishment' Sunday Times
'vivid and expansive' Sophie Mackintosh
'a lyrical celebration' TLS
'a glorious, poetic feat' Bolu Babalola

This is a novel about two women - Melissa and Catarina.

Catarina is born to a well-known political family in Brazil. Melissa, a South London native, is brought up by her mum and a crew of rebellious grandmothers. In 2016, they meet for the first time.

Their story takes us across continents and generations. In it we see sisterhood and queerness, and, perhaps, glimpse a better way to live.

"'A serious accomplishment from a talented writer with a gloriously untethered style'" - Sunday Times

"A lyrical celebration, and mourning, of women driven to and empowered by activism and community engagement . . . Yara Rodrigues Fowler depicts agitation and revolution as a combination of personal and shared moments, filled with hope, loss, loneliness and love" - TLS

"A stirring portrait of the legacy of violence . . . experimental and evocative . . . While the themes that this novel tackles are harrowing, they are handled with the most delicate and deft touch. Issues like queerness, casual racism, the anxiety of being in a foreign land and the pressure of being grateful for being allowed the same opportunities as a white person are sensitively depicted in Fowler's vivid prose" - Irish Times

"A large-hearted novel of sisterhood and resistance" - New Statesman

"This is a vibrant, sensual, olfactory modern novel that celebrates kinship, food, music, mixed heritage, the rhythms of the city, political and sexual awakenings. Formally experimental, but never forbiddingly so, it is a seductive, propulsive read" - The Times

"A political novel rooted in power and cemented in hope" - The Skinny, Books of the Year 2022