A breathtaking examination of romantic obsession and the power struggles of a relationship, this beautifully written and achingly emotional novel marks the debut of one of America's most exciting young writers.

With What Belongs to You American literature is richer by one masterpiece. The character Mitko is unforgettable, as all myths are. He reigns at the heart of this book, surrounded by the magic flames of desire -- Edmund White, author of A Boy's Own Story 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 Joy What Belongs to You is a rich and sensually detailed exploration of love and obsession. A haunting, beautiful novel that gently reminds you to savor life's passions -- Rabih Alameddine, author of The Hakawati Sexually frank, deeply felt, and admirably constructed ... [a] provocative tale Booklist I began reading What Belongs to You in admiration; I ended in tears. An exquisite debut -- Jamie Quatro, author of I WANT TO SHOW YOU MORE A beautiful novel -- Hanya Yanagihara, author of A LITTLE LIFE 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 In his spare, haunting novel, Garth Greenwell takes a well-known narrative and finds new meaning in it. What Belongs to You is a searching and compassionate meditation on the slipperiness of desire, the impossibility of salvation, and the forces of shame, guilt, and yearning that often accompany love, rendered in language as beautiful and vivid as poetry -- Hanya Yanagihara, author of A Little Life I am in awe of this book. So intimate, so honest, so exquisitely crafted, it broke my heart and left me in tears. It showed me a Bulgaria both familiar and entirely novel, rendered with candor and deep affection; and characters, whose plight and desires at first seemed foreign yet, before long, so dear. Garth Greenwell has written a marvelous book; an important book-one whose impact is as much artistic as it is cultural. What Belongs to You expands not simply the world of letters, but also our collective knowledge of what it means to be human -- Miroslav Penkov, author of East of the West What Belongs to You is a rich and sensually detailed exploration of love and obsession. A haunting, beautiful novel that gently reminds you to savor life's passions -- Kevin Brockmeier, author of The Brief History of the Dead A brave and articulate psychological exploration of lust and desire Publishers Weekly This is a project of rare discernment and beauty, and it is not to be missed. A luminous, searing exploration of desire, alienation, and the powerful tattoo of the past Kirkus For its probing, unusually candid inquiry into gay desire, his book seems poised to be received not just as the first great novel of 2016, but the next great gay novel - a somewhat fraught designation that Greenwell has himself considered in his review of Yanagihara's A Little Life for The Atlantic...Funnily enough, however, it's his own novel, spare and set abroad though it may be, that offers us the most exacting and visionary reading in contemporary literature of what it means to be gay in America today Millions In Garth Greenwell's incandescent first novel, What Belongs to You, an old tale is made new, and made punishing... Mr. Greenwell writes long sentences, pinned at the joints by semicolons, that push forward like confidently searching vines. There's suppleness and mastery in his voice. He seems to have an inborn ability to cast a spell New York Times What Belongs To You comes to feel, in the end, like a great enactment of an infatuation, exciting and appalling by turns-a brilliantly observed account of an attempt to make another person entirely yours, to subsume them within your story -- Jonathan Lee Guernica Magazine Garth Greenwell's debut novel What Belongs to You aches with desire and tenderness: an American professor in Bulgaria encounters a male prostitute named Mitko in a public bathroom, beginning a complex sexual relationship between the two that will have enormous ramifications for them both. Lyrical and haunting, What Belongs to You is a rumination on lust, shame, violence, and the ways in which sexual and emotional pain stays with and shapes us Buzzfeed Thomas Mann, Henry James and Marcel Proust are Greenwell's strongest forebears, with James Baldwin and Alan Hollinghurst as equally discernible inspirations...Garth Greenwell's writing is alive to the foreign and the unknown; he opens our eyes to worlds we had not realized existed alongside our own. Even the landscape of Bulgaria, one of the poorest and least-known countries in Europe, is made vivid and vibrant...What Belongs to You make visible all the painful and beautiful facets of human life and human love New Republic What Belongs to You is 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 New York Times Book Review Exquisite...Greenwell is a writer with a gift for metaphor Vulture Lyrical and elegant ...There is much to admire in this short book Boston Globe A novel of aggressive introspection, but Greenwell writes with such candor and psychological precision that the effect is oddly propulsive ... [a] perfect articulation of despair that anyone with a heart will hear Washington Post Reaches, with elegance, with poetry, into what it means to be a human...I rarely feel such a connection with a book: I am sure many others will too, after reading this Bookseller

Garth Greenwell is a graduate of the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop, where he was an Arts Fellow. His novella Mitko won the 2010 Miami University Press Novella Prize and was a finalist for the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction and a Lambda Literary Award.