The Polyglot Lovers

The Polyglot Lovers

Lina Wolff

Original title: De polyglotta älskarna
Publisher: Albert Bonniers Förlag, 2016
Genre: Novel
Pages: 294 pages

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Ellinor is thirty-six. She wears soft black sweatpants and a Michelin Man jacket. She fights. Smart and unsentimental, she tries her hand at online dating, only to be stranded by a snowstorm with a literary critic. Cut to Max Lamas, an author who dreams of a polyglot lover, a woman who will understand him—in every tongue. His search takes him to Italy, where he befriends a marchesa whose old Roman family is on the brink of ruin. At the heart of this literary intrigue is a handwritten manuscript that leaves no one unaffected.

The Polyglot Lovers is a fiercely witty and nuanced contribution to feminism in the #metoo era. Pleasure is an elusive thing, love even more so.

Foreign rights

Bulgaria: Perseus
Croatia: Naklada Ljevak
Czech Republic: Plus
Denmark: Forlaget Gladiator
Netherlands: Atlas Contact
Estonia: Varrak
Finland: Otava
France: Gallimard
Georgia: Siesta
Germany: Hoffmann & Campe
Greece: Psichogios
Hungary: Park
Italy: Codice
Macedonia: Artkonekt
Norway: Forlaget Oktober
Persian: Café 60 Media
Poland: Marginesy
Romania: Cartii di Stinta
Russia: AST
Serbia: Heliks
Turkey: Tetes Kitap
UK: And Other Stories (World English rights)
Ukraine: Vydavnytstvo

Awards

The August Prize 2016
Svenska Dagbladet’s Literature Prize 2016
PEN Translates Award

Lina Wolff

Lina Wolff was born in Lund, Sweden, and lived for several years in Spain and Italy, where she worked as a translator. She arrived on the literary stage in 2009 with the publication of Many People Die Like You, a collection of short stories set in Spain and the south of Sweden. In 2012, her debut novel, Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs, won the Vi Magazine Literature Prize. In 2016, her second novel, The Polyglot Lovers, won Sweden’s most esteemed literary award, the August Prize for Fiction, and has been translated into seventeen languages. Carnalitywas awarded the prestigious Aftonbladet Literature Prize in 2019.

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Carnality

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Many People Die Like You

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The Devil's Grip

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The Corpses We Planted

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