My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein

Deborah Levy is that rare thing: an author who has mastered fiction and non-fiction. Here she does each with a fictionalised account of real events in the life of the American writer Gertrude Stein. It sounds impossibly chic * The Times, ‘The 58 books to look out for in 2026’ *Run away to Paris with this delightful adventure of friendship that follows narrator Deborah with friends Eva and Fanny as they cook, walk, read and ask who was Gertrude Stein? This exploration of the American poet and art collector who was friends with Picasso and Hemingway is truly a delight * ELLE, ‘The Most Hyped Books We Can’t Wait To Read In 2026’ *Fans of Deborah Levy won’t be disappointed by her latest novel, ostensibly an exploration into the life and work of American avant-garde poet and thinker Gertrude Stein, but at its heart, a story about how we choose to navigate our own lives and anxieties. You don’t need to know much, if anything, about Stein to become immediately swept up in the story … Levy ruminates on the pleasures and sorrows of friendship and how our own stories evolve * AnOther Magazine, ‘Ten books to add to your reading list in 2026’ *The brilliant Deborah Levy returns with a new novel that spills over the boundaries of its genre. On the fictional side is the unnamed narrator, discovering herself in the context of new friends, new experiences and a new country. But rising from this narrative is an exploration of a real life literary legend, as the narrator studies the life and work of the modernist icon Gertrude Stein. The result is a stunning portrait of two time periods and two women, fictional and otherwise, seen through the lenses of each other * GQ, ‘The books we can’t wait to read in 2026’ *A portrait of friendship which becomes a portrait of Gertrude Stein, too, spanning from the 19th Century to today – Róisín Lanigan * Glamour, ‘11 books by women for your book club era in 2026’ *At first glance, the title of Deborah Levy’s next book, My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein, suggests she is releasing another of her beloved “living autobiographies”. But this is fiction, albeit in an inventive form, blending a portrait of Stein with a story of friendship and self-discovery * BBC, ‘The 40 most exciting books to look forward to in 2026’ *Deborah Levy, twice shortlisted for the Goldsmiths and the Booker, returns with My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein – a novel that doesn’t sound like one – in which a woman wrestles with the significance of the celebrated modernist * New Statesman, ‘The best fiction of 2025’ *

Deborah Levy is the author of several novels including August Blue, Hot Milk and Swimming Home, alongside a formally innovative, critically acclaimed ‘living autobiography’ trilogy- Things I Don’t Want to Know, The Cost of Living and Real Estate. She has been shortlisted twice each for the Goldsmiths Prize and Booker Prize and won the Prix Femina Etranger. She has also written for The Royal Shakespeare Company and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.