Carpathia

The narrator, a young man, travels from Bratislava back to the region where he was born in north-eastern Slovakia, the homeland of the Rusyns, a people whose territory is divided between Slovakia, Poland and Ukraine. He roams real and vanished villages on all three sides of the border, allegorical Zones and a Strange Town, as well as émigré settings in Bratislava and the United States, meeting real and invented figures linked to the region, Andy Warhol among them. Battles of both world wars, shifting borders, forced religious conversions and post-war deportations have marked this land. Confronting the 'images of the old world' with what he finds today, he searches for fragments of a past that is disappearing before his eyes, and comes to see the assimilation of his people as a tragic fate.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novella

Length

120 pages in the original

Genres

Historical (assigned by AI)

Set in

Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine

First published

2011 by Trio Publishing

Author's age

39 when first published

ISBN

9788089552061 (original)