‘A brilliant novel: intense and poetic, exhilarating and devastating.’ Priya Basil.
Published 1st April 2022.
Love in late capitalism: Ivana Sajko takes us into a war between kitchen and bedroom. He, an unemployed Dante scholar, is trying to change the world and write a novel. She, a passable actress, has given up her safe job at the theatre to care for their child. He is delirious, she is on edge. With the rent overdue and violence looming on all sides, the two of them circle one another in a dizzying dance towards the abyss.
Winner of the HKW Internationaler Literaturpreis
‘Wow, what an incredible novel. The language! Thank you for publishing this book.’ Katja Schneider, stories! bookshop, Hamburg
‘Words and images to take your breath away.’ taz
‘The experiences so original, the observations so sharp, the thoughts so clever.’ Frankfurter Rundschau
‘A sound that tells of political and economic vacuums felt by people in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and the former Yugoslavia to this day.’ MDR Kultur
‘The interpersonal magic now lost, or at least forgotten, but above all: poisoned by the big bad world “out there”. Ivana Sajko celebrates this sad state of affairs with power and intensity. Definitely worth reading.’ NDR Kultur
‘Breathless, barely punctuated. Her heroes: a nameless couple in a Mediterranean nowhere, devoted to each other in hate. A tough, great novel.’ Neue Presse