New Statesman
Desire, art, and politics lead the dance in After Sappho.”
Electric Literature
A triptych of women who refuse to be stifled by societal expectations of femininity. The story unfolds as a series of sensuous fragments that would make the titular Greek poet proud.”
Daily Mail - Claire Allfree
"A highly original, practically uncategorisable novel... Sarah Bernhardt, Virginia Woolf, the Italian writer and lesbian Lina Poletti, plus a host of other lesser-known women who pushed against the conventions of the time — all are given fresh life in this entrancing choric collage of a novel which seems to speak both in one voice and in multitudes all at the same time... I loved it."
The Telegraph - Lucy Scholes
"After Sappho is a project of both imagination and intimacy, but also of significant research. Schwartz’s protagonists are all real people, but she has captured the essence of their lives and identities by means of what she describes as 'speculative biographies'. One of the beauties of this strange, spellbinding novel – other, that is, than the dreamlike, pellucid writing – is this merging of fact and fiction, historical record and artistic vision."
Library Journal
08/01/2022
A Lambda finalist for The Bodies of Others, Schwartz launches her fiction career with a novel sifting together the stories of women intent on living their own lives and forging a queer identity at the turn of the 20th century. Among them: Italian novelist, poet, and essayist Rina Faccio, U.S. painter Romaine Brooks, and the indomitable Virginia Woolf.
