Alina Nelega
Novel, EGO. PROSE series, Polirom, 2019, 384 pages Critics about“After being involved in Romanian theatre for decades, making a name for herself as a leading figure in the field, Alina Nelega returns to literature with an overwhelming novel. Contrary to the (otherwise highly subtle) title, lots of things happen here, things that often keep you on the edge of your seat, and which throw into relief the bumpy life of a girl and then young woman from Transylvania in the gloomy 1980s, who therefore finds herself in a dictatorship that pervades, without your being able to escape it, the tiniest details of life; she finds herself in a patriarchal society in which female aspiration is thwarted by her family above all, which still lives in the Stone Age. This is why femininity (in its various hypostases and in its various aspects, from enthusiasm to mutilation, with love, motherhood and sexuality thrown in) is the dominant theme of the book. Obviously, there are other themes just as exciting, which the reader will discover in this powerful and unsparing novel, which I warmly and confidently recommend.” (Sanda CORDOS) |