Pureza

Pureza is a novel by Garth Greenwell and a follow-up to his debut, What Belongs to You. It is set in Sofia, Bulgaria, a landlocked city in southern Europe, where crumbling Soviet-era buildings stand near streets filled with protesters singing, and where dust carried up from the far south settles over everything. The atmosphere is one of restlessness, both public and private.

At its center is an American teacher whose life has been reshaped by finding and then losing love. As he gets ready to leave the city he has come to think of as home, he turns over the intimate encounters of his years abroad, each of which carries an unsettling echo of his past. A queer student's confession calls back his own first love, a stranger's seduction slides into paternal cruelty, and an affair with another foreigner reopens old wounds and begins to heal them.

Through these repetitions, Greenwell explores foreignness, obligation and desire. He asks what it takes to reach for connection with the people we love, the places we live, and the half-hidden selves we keep losing track of.