We Are Light - by Gerda Blees (Paperback)

About the Book

"In Gerda Blees's novel We Are Light, a woman's quiet, bizarre death exposes the tragic gap between ethics and legality. The leader of the Sound & Love Commune, Melodie manipulates loyalty and obedience from her small group of followers. When she tells them they can survive on light rather than food, they listen, even as Melodie's sister Elisabeth starves to death before their eyes. The story of how all of this came to pass, and whether the law has the power to punish Melodie for her lies, comes together link by link, forming a grim, unbreakable chain that binds the commune together, even in death. It's an unconventional story, told via the settings, objects, and feelings that played a role in it, as with the house where Elisabeth's death occurred and the cello that Melodie once loved but could never make a career with. Some voices are focused and sure of themselves, while others lapse into stream-of-consciousness style, spilling their feelings with a freedom that they can't manage in person. The story itself chimes in at one point to confirm what has become more obvious: it will end with no surprises, no shocking revelations or happy-ever-afters. And yet it remains as hypnotizing as ever, exploring every nook and cranny of the cult members' damaged psyches. Even once the critical events are laid out, questions remain about who is guilty, what guilt is, and which actions merit punishment. There are no easy answers, or even easy questions. In the end, all that remains is the eerie, discomfiting realization that common notions of justice, culpability, and innocence are more fragile than they seem to be. We Are Light is a haunting novel in which obsession, mental illness, and deferred dreams lead to complex, compounding tragedies."--Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

Shortlisted for the 2024 Dublin Literary Award

Winner of the 2021 European Union Literature Prize

"A riveting experimental novel about a commune where the members' belief that they can live on light and love alone proves fatal for one of them." ―Publishers Weekly, starred review

One apartment, three women, one man. One of the women is dead. When the emergency personnel arrive, they realize: Elisabeth starved to death, encouraged by her roommates.

In the middle of a summer night,
Elisabeth, the oldest resident of the Sound & Love Commune, dies. Her
sister Melodie and their two other housemates are arrested: the group's
attempts to stop eating and start living on light and love alone appears
to have been fatal to Elisabeth. From unworldly idealists on the fringes of
society, the three suddenly become suspects in a criminal case. Through the
eyes of the night, the neighbors, doubt, the scent of an orange, and many other
characters and entities, we see how each of those involved gives a different
answer to the question of how Elisabeth came to die. Who is to blame? And does
the commune still have a future? We Are Light
is a highly original and entertaining novel about manipulation, vulnerability,
and trying to be better.

Review Quotes

Praise for We Are Light

"It is fascinating story of a commune in which the members cease to eat and live of air and light. One member dies of starvation. What happened? You read the account by witnessing it by means of bystanders but also by means of other characters, such as the night, a cigarette or even the story itself! Each chapters is told by another character. Bizarre: the story is based on true accounts." ―Dublin Literary Award Judges Citation

"A riveting experimental novel about a commune where the members' belief that they can live on light and love alone proves fatal for one of them." ―Publishers Weekly, starred review

In Gerda Blees's novel We Are Light, a woman's quiet, bizarre death exposes the tragic gap between ethics and legality. The leader of the Sound & Love Commune, Melodie manipulates loyalty and obedience from her small group of followers. When she tells them they can survive on light rather than food, they listen, even as Melodie's sister Elisabeth starves to death before their eyes. We Are Light is a haunting novel in which obsession, mental illness, and deferred dreams lead to complex, compounding tragedies." ―Foreword Reviews, starred review

"The ramifications of today's collective isolation form the crux of the contemporary crises scrutinized in Gerda Blees's incisive debut novel We Are Light, now available from World Editions in Michele Hutchison's translation. Originally published in Blees's native Netherlands in 2020, during the initial pandemic lockdown, the novel won the European Union Prize for Literature the following year. We Are Light evaluates the culpability and interdependence of cohabitating commune members after one of them dies from severe malnutrition." ―LA Review of Books

"An ingenious and highly original composition. What emerges is a beautiful, soulful, rich, and relevant portrait of what people are looking for when they reject science, of what people can do to themselves, just to stay together, to be part of a herd, a group, a 'we.'" ―Jury, Libris Literature Prize
"This novel has a good chance of becoming the most remarkable and formally innovative debut novel of the spring. It's a remarkable novel, and, despite its oppressive subject, a true pleasure to read." ―Der Standard

"Convincingly, Gerda Blees finds her meticulously narrated way through the mine field of fashionable trends." ―Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

"A penetrating psychological text that plumbs the depths of human deception of ourselves and others." ―Die Presse

"An excellent novel. The stunning final chapter will leave readers gasping for air." ―VPRO Gids

"The changing perspective allows Blees to zoom in, zoom out, conceal, and reveal. It's a game loaded with unexpected tension. You're taken by surprise time and again." ―NRC Handelsblad

"It's nice when a writer has the guts to do something different, but it's priceless when this unconventionality has added value and leads to a unique novel." ―De Volkskrant

About the Author

GERDA BLEES
Gerda Blees is a Dutch author and poet. She taught at various universities for several years while doing linguistic research on Dutch-German lingua receptiva--conversations in which each person speaks their own language. We Are Light, Blees's debut novel, won the EU Literature Prize as well as the prestigious Dutch Booksellers Award in 2021. It was also shortlisted for the Libris Literature Award. The author recently completed a bachelor's degree in fine arts at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam while living with her family in Woerden.

MICHELE HUTCHISON
Michele Hutchison studied at UEA, Cambridge, and Lyon universities and worked in publishing for a number of years. In 2004, she moved to Amsterdam. Among the many works she has translated are La Superba by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, Slaves to Fortune by Tom Lanoye, both Craving and Roxy by Esther Gerritsen, and Stadium IV by Sander Kollaard, for which she received the Vondel Translation Prize 2020. In the same year, her translation of Marieke Lucas Rijneveld's novel The Discomfort of Evening was awarded the International Booker Prize. She also co-authored the successful parenting book, The Happiest Kids in the World.