To be published: 16 April 2025
Breathlessness. The novel resonates in a colourful and multi-layered way with the contemporary societal theme of how to be a good mother. The whirlwind of events during a single day in the life of a mother of two young children, between tender moments of parental love, heated conflicts and sheer exhaustion, are accompanied by metaphors and images of a time when women walked the world with bared breasts and drank water from springs, in short, of a time when a child’s mother was an entire community, long before plastic jungles and playgrounds.
Along with vivid images of playing beasts, primordial horns and the swelling bodies of newlywed mothers, the prose also brings up themes of nurture, the family circle, fear and apprehension, bodily boundaries or unsolicited advice, alongside reflections on division, emptiness and missing desire. And most importantly, countless questions and even more angles for finding answers. Can you be a good mother even if you slap your child?