In vivid prose filled with texture, colour and sound, Wioletta Greg describes an ordinary adult world encroaching on a child’s extraordinary universe. Translated by Eliza Marciniak.

In a close-knit Polish farming community in the 1980s, Wiola is growing up. She is a good Catholic girl brought up with fables and nurtured on superstition. She knows killing spiders brings on storms, and that she must never enter the seamstresses’ ‘secret’ room. Her father was a deserter but now he is a taxidermist. Wiola collects matchbox labels - and dances to the strange music of her own imagination.

Longlisted
The Man Booker International Prize 2017
Published by
Portobello Books
Publication date

Buy the book

We benefit financially from any purchases you make when using the ‘Buy the book’ links.

Wioletta Greg

Wioletta Greg

About the Author

Wioletta Greg is the author of six volumes of poetry and a novella, Swallowing Mercury.
More about Wioletta Greg
Eliza Marciniak

Eliza Marciniak

About the Translator

Eliza Marciniak is an editor and translator.
More about Eliza Marciniak