Urodziny

Jaga Babażyna, a puppeteer and actress of sixty-five, shares half of a twin house in Warsaw with her spouse. Fame never came; to earn a living the couple once depended on her dancing for Polish émigrés across America. Since a hospital stay for her throat she has lost her rhythm, forgetting lines and struggling to focus, yet she grabs every job: spinning until dizzy in plays for children, aunts and neighbours, radio plays, extra work in television series. Colleagues and directors treat any slip as a burden on everyone. Then strangers who never speak are waiting outside: a father, a mother and two children, blue-skinned and hollow-eyed. They get into the house and follow her everywhere, but nobody else can see them. Only Jaga's own words appear as dialogue.

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About the book

Form

Novel

Length

252 pages in the original

First published

2025 by Wydawnictwo Czarne

Author's age

36 when first published

ISBN

9788383960951 (original)