Anna Caritj
Author of
Leda and the Swan (Riverhead, 2021)
Anna Caritj holds a BA from the University of Virginia, where she studied Spanish and English literature, and an MFA in creative writing from Hollins University. She received the Wagenheim Fiction Prize in 2012 and was a winner of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs’ 2016 Intro Journals Project. Her short stories have appeared in Blackbird and Mid-American Review.
She and her partner live in southwest Virginia with their goats, sheep, and big white dog.
Books by Anna
Leda and the Swan (Riverhead, 2021)
It’s Halloween night on a pastoral East Coast college campus. Scantily costumed students ride the fine line between adolescence and adulthood as they prepare for a night of drinking and debauchery. Expectations are high as Leda flirts with her thrilling new crush, Ian, and he flirts back. But by the end of the night, things will have taken a turn.
A mysterious young woman in a swan costume speaks with Leda outside a party—and then vanishes. When Leda later wakes up in Ian’s room the next morning, she is unsure exactly what happened between them. Meanwhile, as the campus rouses itself to respond to the young woman’s disappearance, rumors swirl, suspicious facts pile up, and Leda’s obsession with her missing classmate grows. Is it just a coincidence that Ian used to date Charlotte, the missing woman? Is Leda herself in danger? As Leda becomes more and more dangerously consumed with the mystery of Charlotte and questions about Ian, her motivations begin to blur. Is Leda looking for Charlotte, or trying to find herself?
In Leda and the Swan, Anna Caritj’s riveting storytelling brings together a suspenseful plot; an intimate, confessional voice; and invaluable insights into sex, power, and contemporary culture.
Praise
“Caritj pulls off a smart twist on the campus novel in her thrilling debut. . .an engrossing tale about the nature of consent, sexual violence, and performative activism. . .The book’s strength is in Caritj’s prose, as she builds a brilliant contrast between the quotidian nature of college life and postadolescent feeling of otherworldliness. . . .This thoughtful exploration of contemporary sexual politics hits the spot.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Leda and the Swan had me totally enthralled. Anna Caritj has created a haunting and irresistibly intimate voice in Leda, a young woman navigating the bacchanalia of college Greek life against a riptide of both personal and public grief. This novel is a lush thrill.”
—Kate Reed Petty, author of True Story
“A riveting debut. At once a contemplative novel about a young woman finding her footing in this uncertain world, and a propulsive page-turning. A stunning read and an incisive new voice in fiction.”
—Dana Czapnik, author of The Falconer