Photograph: Sarah Lee
Agent
Assistant
Biography
Beatrice Hitchman was born in London in 1980. She lives in Oxford.
ALL OF YOU, EVERY SINGLE ONE - Serpent's Tail (UK) and Abrams (USA) - August 2021 / February 2022
Longlisted for the HWA Gold Grown Award 2022
Longlisted for the Polari Book Prize 2022
From an acclaimed and powerful talent in historical fiction, a literary historical novel set in a bohemian enclave of Vienna, about love, freedom, and what constitutes a family
Set in Vienna from 1910 to 1946, All of You Every Single One is an atmospheric, original, and deeply moving novel about family, freedom, and how true love might survive impossible odds. Julia Lindqvist, a woman unhappily married to a famous Swedish playwright, leaves her husband to begin a passionate affair with a female tailor named Eve. The pair run away together and settle in the more liberal haven of Vienna, where they fall in love, navigate the challenges of their newfound independence, and find community in the city’s Jewish quarter. But Julia’s yearning for a child throws their fragile happiness into chaos and threatens to destroy her life and the lives of those closest to her. Ada Bauer’s wealthy industrialist family have sent her to Dr. Freud in the hope that he can cure her mutism–and do so without a scandal. But help will soon come for Ada from an unexpected place, changing many lives irrevocably.
Through the lives of her queer characters, and against the changing backdrop of one of the greatest cities of the age, Hitchman asks what it’s like to live through oppression, how personal decisions become political, and how far one will go to protect the ones they love. Moving across Europe and through decades, Hitchman’s sophomore novel is an intensely poignant portrait of life and love on the fringes of history.
Publications
Fiction
Mesdames et Messieurs, presenting La Petite Mort, or, A Little Death …
A silent film, destroyed in a fire in 1914 at the Pathé studio, before it was seen even by its director.
A lowly seamstress, who makes the costumes she should be wearing, but believes her talent – and the secret she keeps too – will soon get her a dressing room of her own.
A famous – and dashing – creator of spectacular cinematic illusions, husband to a beautiful, volatile actress, the most adored icon of the Parisian studios.
All fit together, like scenes in a movie. And as you will see, this plot has a twist we beg you not to disclose …
Praise for PETITE MORT (2013):
Longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize
Llonglisted for the Author’s Club Best First Novel Award
Shortlisted for the Polari Prize
Shortlisted for the HWA Debut Dagger
Adapted as a ten-part Women’s Hour drama starring Honor Blackman.
‘This clever debut indicates a bright future for its author.’ – the Independent
‘ Read and enjoy’ – the Sydney Morning Herald
‘An astonishingly assured debut novel … an expertly crafted story.’ – The Irish Times
‘There’s a touch of Angela Carter about Beatrice Hitchman’s beguiling debut – a sly, erotic thriller concerned with doubleness and duplicity.’ – Guardian
‘An impressive and enjoyable debut: nimble, deft and wrapped luxuriously in the velveteen glamour of the movies.’ –Financial Times
‘Sumptuously set, elegantly written, evocative and quietly subversive’ – Stella Duffy
