Es ist Sarah

She arrives late, breathlessly laughing, full of life. She speaks too loudly, too quickly, her makeup is too heavy, a moment like in slow motion: It’s Sarah. On New Year’s Eve, they meet for the first time: the narrator, a teacher and freshly separated young mother, and Sarah, the highly gifted and exuberant violinist. Both live in Paris, perhaps the only thing that connects them at first glance. Sarah is spirited, impulsive, passionate, while the narrator is more controlled, inconspicuous. A friendship develops between these different women, crescendoing into a passionate love that sweeps away everything the narrator has lived before: the separation from her ex-husband, her struggles, her self-control. But as quickly and all-consuming as their passion ignites, the harmony is devastatingly destroyed. When Sarah falls ill, the narrator flees to Trieste, shedding everything except the memory of her great tragic love.

With "It’s Sarah," Pauline Delabroy-Allard has created a breathtaking literary debut that has caused a stir in France: a love story unlike any told before. Poetically, powerfully, and uncompromisingly, the author describes a passionate love between two women, crafting an unvarnished portrait of a love filled with beauty and horror. Captivated by this melancholic and gripping composition, the reader follows the flare-up and extinguishing of this love until its dramatic final chord.

"A handwriting that is as sensual as it is hypnotic, a daring novel, an unprecedented portrait that instantly captivates the reader. ... A book that one reads with the gut, with the heart. The reader feels every excitement, every passionate embrace, every despair up close ... What a feat for a first novel to draw the reader in with such verve.".