I WILL LIVE
The International Bestseller, Longlisted for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize 2025
Published on 22. August 2024
Book
Hardback
320 pages
978-1-4087-1680-9 (ISBN)
Description
The fierce and funny international bestseller about a young Turkish-Dutch woman rebelling against her strict religious upbringing and searching for her own path
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
'Electrifying ... Guel's is a singular voice, one demanding our fullest attention' Ali Millar, author of The Last Days and Ava Anna Ada
Buesra is living a double life. At home with her parents, life is an endless argument - about what time she comes home, about what she wears, and most of all, about how the rules apply only to her, while her brother Halil enjoys free rein.
But out in the world, everything is different. Buesra is studying Dutch literature at university, and she reads everything she can get her hands on. She works at a restaurant, where she wears tight dresses and serves alcohol. And her biggest secret of all: she has a boyfriend, and she is passionately and sinfully in love with him.
Fiery, erotic and furious, and crackling with a relentless, mischievous intellect, I Will Live is a rallying cry against patriarchal injustice - and the story of a young woman finding her voice.
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
'Electrifying ... Guel's is a singular voice, one demanding our fullest attention' Ali Millar, author of The Last Days and Ava Anna Ada
Buesra is living a double life. At home with her parents, life is an endless argument - about what time she comes home, about what she wears, and most of all, about how the rules apply only to her, while her brother Halil enjoys free rein.
But out in the world, everything is different. Buesra is studying Dutch literature at university, and she reads everything she can get her hands on. She works at a restaurant, where she wears tight dresses and serves alcohol. And her biggest secret of all: she has a boyfriend, and she is passionately and sinfully in love with him.
Fiery, erotic and furious, and crackling with a relentless, mischievous intellect, I Will Live is a rallying cry against patriarchal injustice - and the story of a young woman finding her voice.
Reviews / Votes
I Will Live is an electrifying book, alive with the far ranging effects of following the clarion call to freedom. Guel's is a singular voice, one demanding our fullest attention -- Ali Millar, author of The Last Days and Ava Anna Ada Sex-rich ... its bravery and sensuality are undeniable * Telegraph *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Little, Brown Book Group
Product notice
Trade binding
Dimensions
Height: 221 mm
Width: 138 mm
Thickness: 33 mm
Weight
426 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4087-1680-9 (9781408716809)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Lale Guel was born in 1997 in Amsterdam and is a writer and columnist for the Dutch newspaper Het Parool. Until the age of seventeen, she attended a Koranic school run by the Milli Goerues Foundation at the weekends, then she studied Dutch Language and Literature at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. Her autofictional debut novel, I Will Live, was published in Dutch in 2021 and became an international bestseller. In 2024 she published a second book, I Am Free, which was also an instant bestseller. She has won numerous prizes, including the NS Publieksprijs, the Euregio Literature Prize, the Pim Fortuyn Prize and Dutchman of the Year.