Blue Hunger

“Xu, bite my lip. As hard as you can.”

Viola Di Grado’s Blue Hunger is a vivid, acerbic and gripping story focusing on two women who embark on a passionate, tumultuous, and ultimately, toxic relationship. Set in Shanghai, the megacity is illustrated by its grit, eclectic cultural influences, taboos, and towering skyscrapers. Translated in English by Jamie Richards and published earlier in 2023 by Scribe Publications, this is one book to add to your spring–summer reading list.

A young woman arrives in Shanghai still mourning the loss of her twin brother Ruben, who aspired to open a restaurant. She spends her days teaching Italian to students and spends the nights processing her grief while navigating the complex city. One night, she meets a mysterious young woman named Xu, who turns out to be one of the students in her class. Xu’s name is pronounced properly when the tongue “remains still at the back of the mouth where the throat begins, then make a distant, poetic whistle like that of certain nocturnal birds”. Xu’s hair is glorious and is the colour of tan. Xu is many things – but she is incapable of loving her.

Their relationship is turbulent and stormy. The woman is grief-stricken and desperate for love, any type of love. Xu’s actions are influenced by an unfortunate past coloured by trauma, abuse and abandonment. Xu lives in a dirty apartment, filled with rotten food scraps, a multitude of wrappers and packaging, and other miscellaneous rubbish. Their dynamic follows the cycle of toxic relationships – sorry to psychoanalyse – where tension and resentment build to an argument, accusation or ultimatum followed by a period of silence and self-repair. Only for the cycle to repeat.

Xu takes her to the extremes of pain and pleasure and invites her to a world of sex and drugs at abandoned factories and dilapidated slaughterhouses. On pills and in the middle of the club, the pair get into yet another argument where Xu is labelled a “monster” who retaliates by saying she is seeking punishment for the guilt she feels for her brother’s death. It was their final encounter.

“In time, everything gets better. It always does … Loves become memories of places and experiences, parts of bodies. Xu would become something like that. In my head. Something cold. An idea.”

Blue Hunger is quite simply an excellent read. Its pacing is quick, direct and electrifying. Dialogue is constructed and utilised with powerful effects. Viola Di Grado does a beautiful job of describing the chaos and noise of Shanghai, and the challenges for expats trying to navigate – geographically, mentally and emotionally – the sheer enormity of the city. The story’s take on queer romance feels genuine and asks the reader to contemplate a time in their life when an addictive love took them to some scary places.

Born in Catania, Sicily, in 1987, Viola Di Grado is an Italian author who became the youngest winner of Italy’s Premio Campiello Opera Prima and the youngest finalist for the Premio Strega.

Blue Hunger
Now available, $27.99, paperback