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Selby Wynn Schwartz

Biography

Selby Wynn Schwartz

Selby Wynn Schwartz holds a PhD in comparative literature from the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of AFTER SAPPHO, which was longlisted for the Booker Prize; THE BODIES OF OTHERS: Drag Dances and Their Afterlives, a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award; and the forthcoming novella A LIFE IN CHAMELEONS.

Selby Wynn Schwartz

Books by Selby Wynn Schwartz

by Selby Wynn Schwartz - Fiction, Historical Fiction

“The first thing we did was change our names. We were going to be Sappho.” So begins Selby Wynn Schwartz’s debut novel, centuries after the Greek poet penned her lyric verse. Ignited by the same muse, a myriad of women break from their small, predetermined lives for seemingly disparate paths. In 1892, Rina Faccio trades her needlepoint for a pen; in 1902, Romaine Brooks sails for Capri with nothing but her clotted paintbrushes; and in 1923, Virginia Woolf writes, “I want to make life fuller and fuller.” Writing in cascading vignettes, Schwartz spins an invigorating tale of women whose narratives converge and splinter as they forge queer identities and claim the right to their own lives.