Shortlisted for the Saltire Scottish First Book of the Year, 2022
Limbo, a queer nightclub in 1933 Berlin, with Germany under Nazi rule, is where we first meet B and the dazzling array of characters who inhabit this episodic narrative sequence, almost a film noir in verse: singers, dancers, comperes, shopkeepers and secret policemen rub up against each other with suspicion, complicity, love, betrayal and freedom never far from their minds. A study of paranoia, tyranny and perseverance. And tension that will keep you guessing until the final line.
‘If, like me, you’re fascinated by queer life in 1930s Berlin, there is
much to savour in Georgi Gill’s Limbo. The compelling narrative is a
page turner on first read, and then the distinct voices of the watched
and the watching, the hunters and hunted, and Gill’s rich, startling
imagery pulls the reader back. I was particularly moved by the poems
about the burning of documents in the Institute for Sexual Science
and what this meant for the denizens of Limbo, deciding when, and
if, to flee. These are poems about queer life as performance, as a way
of life, as escape and ultimately survival.’ —Jay Whittaker
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