MAJOR BRAZILIAN LITERARY STAR: Carola Saavedra’s full length work has never been translated and published in English. She was named one of Granta’s The Best of Young Brazilian Writers and is a literary star in Brazil.

UNIVERSAL PERSPECTIVE: Though Saavedra is a Brazilian novelist, Blue Flowers could take place anywhere, in any major city, and her characters feel like they could be your neighbor, the person sitting next to you on the train.

GRIPPING READ: The emotional, searing language of heartbreak of the letters and the intertwined points of view in the novel build to a shocking climax, and an intriguing mystery of the identity of the anonymous A.

CELEBRATED TRANSLATOR: Daniel Hahn is a star translator - his work has been shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize and he’s won the International Dublin Literary Award.

Carola Saavedra is the author of several novels in Brazilian Portuguese, including the award-winning Blue Flowers. She lives in Germany.

Daniel Hahn is an award-winning writer, editor, and translator with more than sixty books to his name. His translations (from Portuguese, Spanish, and French) have won him the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award and have been shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize, among others.

Author Residence: Frankfurt, Germany

Author Hometown: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Praise for Blue Flowers

“Ravishing… as if Saavedra were a modern-day Borges. Translated brilliantly from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn, Blue Flowers plays out in a musical dance between A’s letters and the slow immolation of Marcos’s world as he grows addicted to them. It’s a mystery, yes. It might be a ghost story. It is sexy, and often unsettling. By the end, you could be forgiven for chewing your fingernails, wondering whether it’s all a figment of Marcos’s imagination. Or not.” —Luis Alberto Urrea, O, The Oprah Magazine

“Saavedra’s writing, particularly in the raw and vulnerable epistles, feels relentless and evocative in Hahn’s translation and creates intensity inside this tale shaped by characters strongly preoccupied with words and meaning. Thematically layered and psychologically demanding, this is a book for readers willing to explore uneasy relationship dynamics.” —Booklist
 
“Captivating… In chapters alternating between letters and Marcos’s reactions, Saavedra steadily unveils the darkness permeating the lives of her protagonists, and in doing so creates a literary psychological thriller that questions what is real and what is imagined. This tale of desire and yearning is impossible to put down.” —Publishers Weekly

“Blue Flowers is an elegant and unnerving meditation on the aftermath of love and the lasting power of desire. It’s a bracing, fast read, one with a long afterglow and a dangerous lesson: that it may be that distance and removal are the only ways to learn about presence and proximity.” —Catherine Lacey, author of The Answers and Nobody is Ever Missing

“An enchanting and disturbing epistolary monologue charged with danger, mystery, desire, and longing, as seen through the eyes of a woman with nothing left to lose. This novel reminded me of Marais and Carrère in all the best ways—but better, and deeper, for its honesty and pure feeling. I can’t stop thinking about it.” —Lisa Locascio, author of Open Me

“Saavedra confirms her talent by using devices from the epistolary genre and transforming the reader into an accomplice in a plot full of tricks.”—O Estado de S. Paulo (Brazil)
 
“An astounding book.”—Gazeta do Povo (Brazil)