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What Belongs to You

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What Belongs to You

By: Garth Greenwell
Narrated by: Garth Greenwell
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About this listen

Startlingly erotic and immensely powerful, Garth Greenwell's What Belongs to You tells an unforgettable story about the ways our pasts and cultures, our scars and shames can shape who we are and determine how we love.

Winner of the Debut of the Year Award at the British Book Awards.
Shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize.

'A searching and compassionate meditation on the slipperiness of desire . . . as beautiful and vivid as poetry' – Hanya Yanagihara, author of A Little Life

On an unseasonably warm autumn day, an American teacher enters a public bathroom beneath Sofia's National Palace of Culture. There he meets Mitko, a charismatic young hustler, and pays him for sex. He returns to Mitko again and again over the next few months, their relationship growing increasingly intimate and unnerving.

As he struggles to reconcile his longing with the anguish it creates, he's forced to grapple with his own fraught history: his formative experiences of love, his painful rejection by family and friends, and the difficulty of growing up as a gay man in southern America in the 1990s.

'Worthy of its comparisons to James Baldwin and Alan Hollinghurst as well as Virginia Woolf and W G Sebald . . . spellbinding' – Evening Standard

Longlisted for the National Book Award in Fiction.
A Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
A Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction.

©2017 Garth Greenwell (P)2016 Macmillan Digital Audio Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Romance World Literature
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The Pride List of Queer Storytelling

To mark Pride 2023 Audible teamed up with non-profit organisation, Out on the Page, supporter and champion of LGBTQIA+ writers and writing, to release an extensive Pride List of Queer Storytelling. Featuring contributions from some of the UK’s most important and exciting voices from the LGBTQIA+ community, this audiobook is one of the many featured on the list that is available to listen to on Audible.
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Critic reviews

A rich, important debut, an instant classic to be savored by all lovers of serious fiction because of, not despite, its subject: a gay man's endeavor to fathom his own heart (Aaron Hamburger)
A powerful novel from a writer who seems destined to produce fine work in the years ahead, describing both the condition of loneliness and the insistent cravings of the flesh with precision and sensitivity. (John Boyne)
There's a particular joy in reading Garth Greenwell, in having that feeling, precious and rare: here is the real thing (Claire Messud, author of The Woman Upstairs)
A subtle observer of human interactions. He underscores the way expressions of love are nearly always, in part, performance (Dwight Garner)
A slender and achingly beautifully novel full of the gloriously messy pain of unrequited and inappropriate love (Cathy Rentzenbrink)
A truly stunning debut . . . a masterpiece . . . A literary star is born (Janice Forsyth)
I was blown away by [What Belongs to You] (Farhana Gani)
Greenwell's literary criticism in the New Yorker and the Atlantic demonstrates an unusually keen and insightful mind. That promise is fully realized here in the dark magic of these pages (Ron Charles)
What Belongs to You is a rich and sensually detailed exploration of love and obsession. A haunting, beautiful novel (Rabih Alameddine, author of An Unnecessary Woman)
What Belongs to You is a beautiful, moving, sensual novel. It announces Garth Greenwell as one of America's most exciting young writers (Jonathan Lee, author of High Dive)

What listeners say about What Belongs to You

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This is good!

In fact it's very good indeed. Beautifully drawn characters. Rich description. The writer draws you into their world so skillfully you feel like you are in Bulgaria with them. This is the best fictional novel I have read in a long time. It is recommended reading on a course I am due to do. I wouldn't have chosen it normally but am glad I did.

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4 people found this helpful

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Profile Image for Waggy From Derby

just enjoyed it

bloomin heck who'd want to go to Bulgaria anyway, especially if you're gay. keep away there is no penicillin, if you're poor you are done for, dogs roam in packs
but you have to read books like this to know.

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1 person found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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Profile Image for Ronald Betts

Interesting life in Bulgaria

It interesting story of a gay man in Bulgaria but its got the saddest end and had me choked up, well narrated.

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for Nick Hart

Awful reading. Is it AI??

I’ve had to give up listening as it sounds like it’s read by a robot. Is this AI - if so it’s not very intelligent as it doesn’t seem to understand the sense of what it’s reading. I’ve heard the author interviewed and he speaks very well and places great importance on words and their meaning so it seems extraordinary that he would read so badly.
It gets a bit better as it progresses (maybe the AI learns along the way?) but after an hour or so I had to give up and would like my money back.

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