Flesh and Bone and Water

Brazilian-born doctor André Cabral is living in London when one day he receives a letter from his home country, which he left nearly thirty years ago. A letter he keeps in his pocket for weeks, but tells no one about. 
 
The letter prompts André to remember the days of his youth - torrid afternoons on Ipanema beach with his listless teenage friends, parties in elegant Rio apartments, his after-school job at his father's plastic surgery practice - and, above all, his secret infatuation with the daughter of his family's maid, the intoxicating Luana. Unable to resist the pull of the letter, André embarks on a journey back to Brazil to rediscover his past.

An arresting debut about memory and trauma. In this respect and others, it resembles Julian Barnes's Man Booker-winner, The Sense of an Ending. Sauma, whose style manages to be both spare and rich, is clear-eyed about the social and racial divides in Rio

Luiza Sauma's debut novel is that rare thing: a completely absorbing, brilliantly-designed, literary work. Her ability to cut across time and continents and to inhabit the physical and inner life of both a young Brazilian and that same man in middle-age is as dazzling as the novel's plot. The reveal, when it comes, is astonishing-sensuous, shocking, and completely earned.

Anita Shreve, New York Times bestselling author of The Pilot’s Wife

Her writing is beautiful. I am sure I'll see her name on the spine of many a novel to come

Rachel Seiffert, author of the Booker-shortlisted 'The Dark Room'

Sauma's writing is sensual and evocative. Flesh and Bone and Water is a powerful depiction of sexual attraction and long lost loves; a haunting weave of Rio, the Amazon and present-day London

Ardashir Vakil, award-winning author of 'Beach Boy'

Luiza Sauma's first novel, Flesh and Bone and Water, is lush and evocative. The secret at the center came as a shocking surprise, and the characters were as haunted as I was. Sip a caipirinha and enjoy

I devoured this stunning debut by Luiza Sauma. An immersive, heartbreaking coming of age story. Beg, borrow or steal a copy

Susie Steiner, author of 'Missing, Presumed'

Teenage love is well documented, but Sauma finds some interesting things to say about it in her debut novel... Sauma convincingly evokes the cacophony of Rio. Moving... it offers an indelible glimpses into Brazil's stratified society

Sauma's excellent prose is thoroughly consuming, bouncing between continents and eras to create a complicated tale of class, ancestry, and love in which happy endings are difficult to find but hope remains.

A sensuous, achingly poignant and beautifully observed exploration of both adolescence and a midlife crisis.

[A] quiet, inwardly focused, fast-moving, and well-plotted debut...Brazilian-born Sauma depicts her and her protagonist's vast, beguiling homeland with sweltering realism.

Brazil is marvellously conjured: full of hot, smoky sunrises and manioc pancakes, chilled coconut milk and "the salty violence of Ipanema"

Luiza Sauma was born in Rio de Janeiro and raised in London. Her first novel, Flesh and Bone and Water, received widespread critical acclaim and she was listed by the Telegraph as one of their 'ones to watch' for 2017. Luiza worked at the Independent on Sunday for several years before becoming a novelist. She has an MA in Creative and Life Writing from Goldsmiths, University of London, where she won the Pat Kavanagh Award.

Luiza Sauma

Sauma skewers the falsities and disappointments of contemporary life and work with rare sensitivity, unfolding an evocative narrative of unearthly escape. I loved it

Megan Hunter, author of 'The End We Start From'

Every now and then, a book comes along and pins down the wild thoughts that have been circling around in your brain as you question the meaning of your life in the bath at midnight. Manages to sensitively unpack the frustrations of modern life while appreciating how funny the banality of it all is

An important and poignant novel that captures the ennui, panic and stubborn optimism of the zeitgeist with spirit, humour and a fearless portrayal of human truth

Helen Cullen, author of 'The Lost Letters of William Woolf'

Beautifully written . . . Everything You Ever Wanted explores our current obsession with a meaningful life

Everything You Ever Wanted is one of the most original and urgent novels I've read this year. Sauma dives under the skin of the way we live now and makes it into an astonishing new shape. Funny, heart-breaking and thought-provoking - a novel that talks about all the things we are most afraid to talk about. Read it!

Clare Fisher , author 'All the Good Things'

Sauma's wondrous novel could not be more timely. Captures the era of social media addiction and status anxiety perfectly. . . . with echoes of The Truman Show and 1984

Uplifting, unputdownable and mordantly funny, Everything You Ever Wanted is the dystopian beach read you didn't know you needed. It's a love letter to London from outer space. It's both a speculative dystopian drama and a deadpan office satire. It's a brilliantly relatable and ambitious ode to the humdrum and the sublime; a truly original novel that captures the pleasures and displeasures of modern, earthly life.

Everything You Ever Wanted is so sharp-eyed about our hidden hopes and tiny hypocrisies. Even the most fantastical elements feel painfully, perfectly true. I'd follow Sauma's voice down any wormhole

Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, author of 'Harmless Like You'

A daring and original novel that asks profound questions about the way we live today whilst being simultaneously playful and fun. Sauma is brilliant at nailing the details of contemporary life in a way that is recognisable to anyone who has suffered the mundanity of office jobs.

Courageous, haunting, and beautiful-with EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED, Luiza Sauma takes us on a breathtaking voyage through both the farthest reaches of space and the innermost depths of the human soul

Tinged with melancholy and yearning, this novel is wry and frequently beautiful, and its culmination is surprising and deeply moving

What Sauma captures so excellently is the low level anxiety that hums through everyday life

Rachel Seiffert, author of Dark Room and A Boy in Winter

Weird, wonderful and beautifully written

Sauma has the horrors of the workplace nailed with satirical precision

Absorbing and ambitious. Filled with sharp observations about the way in which we live now, Everything You Ever Wanted is both an acute satire of our social-media dominated times, and a haunting examination of depression and anxiety rendered in diamond sharp prose with barely a wasted word. . . It deserves to be on every prize longlist this year

Otegha Uwagba, author of 'The Little Black Book'

A Florence Welch Between Two Books Pick

You wake up. You go to work. You don't go outside for twelve hours at a time. You have strategy meetings about how to use hashtags. After work you order expensive drink after expensive drink until you're so blackout drunk you can't remember the circumstances which have led you to waking up in bed with your colleague. The next day you stay in bed until the afternoon, scrolling through your social media feeds and wondering why everyone else seems to be achieving so much. Sometimes you don't get out of bed at all. 
 
Then you hear about Life on Nyx, a programme that allows 100 lucky winners the chance to escape it all, move to another planet and establish a new way of life. One with meaning and purpose. One without Instagram and online dating. There's one caveat: if you go, you can never come back. 
 
But you aren't worried about that. 
 
After all, what on Earth could there possibly be to miss?

Luiza Sauma

Praise for Everything You Ever Wanted

Sauma skewers the falsities and disappointments of contemporary life and work with rare sensitivity, unfolding an evocative narrative of unearthly escape. I loved it

Every now and then, a book comes along and pins down the wild thoughts that have been circling around in your brain as you question the meaning of your life in the bath at midnight. Manages to sensitiv ...

An important and poignant novel that captures the ennui, panic and stubborn optimism of the zeitgeist with spirit, humour and a fearless portrayal of human truth

Sauma skewers the falsities and disappointments of contemporary life and work with rare sensitivity, unfolding an evocative narrative of unearthly escape. I loved it

Every now and then, a book comes along and pins down the wild thoughts that have been circling around in your brain as you question the meaning of your life in the bath at midnight. Manages to sensitiv ...

An important and poignant novel that captures the ennui, panic and stubborn optimism of the zeitgeist with spirit, humour and a fearless portrayal of human truth

Sauma skewers the falsities and disappointments of contemporary life and work with rare sensitivity, unfolding an evocative narrative of unearthly escape. I loved it

Every now and then, a book comes along and pins down the wild thoughts that have been circling around in your brain as you question the meaning of your life in the bath at midnight. Manages to sensitiv ...

An important and poignant novel that captures the ennui, panic and stubborn optimism of the zeitgeist with spirit, humour and a fearless portrayal of human truth

Books by Luiza Sauma

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter