“Black Vodka” by Deborah Levy, a British playwright, poet and novelist, is a collection of 10 short stories (occupying only 120 pages, so if you are up for a quick read, this one is for you). The title story features an ad copywriter working on an ad for black vodka, which “will appeal to those in need of stylish angst.” The same can be said about Levy’s book. Her slice-of-life stories will take you on an unpredictable journey into our experiences of love, loss, and search for identity. Levy brilliantly constructs a special mood for every story, immersing the reader in the scene and offering poignant psychological portraits. National and cultural identity is one of the topics you’ll find in most stories, where protagonists from different countries and backgrounds search for - or try to escape from - themselves. Loneliness, love, infidelity, fluid identities - you will find a vivid and humorous depiction of the international and cosmopolitan 21st-century society on these pages.

‘Kissing you is like new paint and old pain. It is like coffee and car alarms and a dim stairway and a stain and it’s like smoke.’

How does love change us? And how do we change ourselves for love – or for lack of it?

Ten stories by acclaimed author Deborah Levy explore these delicate, impossible questions. In Vienna, an icy woman seduces a broken man; in London, a bird mimics an old-fashioned telephone; in adland, a sleek copywriter becomes a kind of shaman. These are twenty-first century lives dissected with razor-sharp humour and curiosity, stories about what it means to live and love, together and alone.

Shortlisted for the 2013 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award
The title story of Black Vodka was shortlisted for the 2012 BBC International Short Story Award.

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