Blue Woman

• Winner of the German Book Prize 2021
• More than 100,000 copies sold
• English sample translation available
• VIDEO: Zaia Alexander reads for Translators aloud

Winner of the German Book Prize 2021

Sample translation available

Do we have the right to remain silent?
Adina grew up as the last teenager in her village in the Czech Giant Mountains. While attending a language course in Berlin, she meets a photographer named Rickie, who gets her an internship in an arts center in the Uckermark. After being raped by a West German cultural politician, she sets out on an odyssey that takes her across half of Europe. In the end, Adina is stranded in Helsinki where Leonides, an Estonian politician and member of the European parliament, becomes her emotional anchor. While he campaigns for human rights, Adina seeks a way out of her inner exile.
"Blue Woman" is a stirring account of a young woman's struggle for integrity. On the road from the Czech Republic to Finland, to Estonia and Germany, her experiences reflect the recent power struggles between Eastern and Western Europe.

Praise for Blue Woman:

A little work of wonder in contemporary prose literature (...) masterly. —Fritz J. Raddatz, Die Welt

A lyrical and always suspenseful novel about Europe, memory, violence, and love. —Deutsche Welle

Told without compromise (…) and with an elemental force. —Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

What seems straightforward and clear when summarized is unfolded by Strubel in all its complexity and contradictoriness: the power of trauma to annihilate one’s existence. —Die Welt

[Strubel is] a master of interior states (…) From the very first pages of her gleaming novel, BLUE WOMAN, you’re irresistibly pulled into her story. —Süddeutsche Zeitung 

An incredibly multi-layered, intelligent, political, psychological novel. —rbb Kultur

She has mastered the art of articulating what should be unspeakable without having to resort to hyperbolic language. —Bayerischer Rundfunk

Excitingly quiet and artfully composed.— rbb Inforadio

A gripping novel about the right to tell your own story: Antje Rávik Strubel’s BLUE WOMAN is the portrait of a woman—and of Europe. —Der Tagesspiegel

A strong statement for female self-determination. —Weser Kurier

A highly ambitious interplay between snapshots of the present and the psychological burden of the past. —Abendzeitung München

An incredibly complex and gripping book. —Deutschlandfunk Kultur

Passages of lyrical intensity stand alongside political statements; bitter past experiences lead to a maybe brighter future. —WDR3

Overcoming trauma is the central theme of this stirring novel which, quite literally, goes under your skin. —Lokalkompass