The Polyglot Lovers

'A singular novel, sometimes brutal, certainly merciless.' - Le Figaro (France)

Ferocious and irreverent, this multiple prize-winning novel burns down the pretensions of a pompous literary establishment and takes no prisoners.

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 in 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.


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Lina Wolff was born in Lund, Sweden, and lived for several years in Spain and Italy, where she worked as a translator. In 2012 her debut novel,'Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs', won the prestigious Vi Magazine's Literature Award. In 2016 her novel 'The Polyglot Lovers' won Sweden's highest literary award, the August Prize for Fiction, and has been translated into seventeen languages. 'Carnality' was awarded the prestigious Aftonbladet Literature Prize in 2019.