Babička©

The 1990s, a small-town housing estate: childhoods, adolescence, ageing, grazed knees, soaked slippers, neighbours, pubs, kindergartens and schools, Maria Callas and one Grandma. In 1989 Magda goes to school crying in the rain in her slippers, because her father, who drinks, forgot to swap them for shoes. As an adult she stands at a funeral, and only slowly does it become clear whose, while memories surface in a deliberately chaotic order. It is a story of women across generations, a grandmother who rules the house, a mother who is an angel and Magda between them, and of family violence long tolerated, addiction, inherited trauma and growing up too fast in post-1989 Slovakia.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

132 pages in the original

Genres

Family, Coming of age (assigned by AI)

Set in

Slovakia, from 1989

First published

2023 by Vlna

Author's age

38 when first published

ISBN

9788089550937 (original)