Description: 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