Snapshots of border-crossings

When we set out on the journey Zsófia Bán's latest volume of short stories offers, a whole maze of potential paths opens up both in terms of historical time and cultural space. This unique textual universe makes the reader question and redefine their own boundaries of self and other, present and past, home and foreign. In this new collection of short fiction the author revisits various themes of her first volume, Night School (also published in German), such as memory, journey, gender roles or the literary tradition, but these stories demonstrate a more succint style and mature tone. Even though the book cannot be readily categorized as another contemporary body book, somatic impressions and sensual memory do play a visceral role in all the narratives, making them vivid recollections of personal 'herstories' (since most of the protagonists are women). The mysterious jungle green cover also emphasises the duality of intellectual and animalistic elements as well as that of body and mind, thus bridging distance in many ways, be it geographical, temporal, cultural or intersubjective - and eventually bringing close what seems to be far away.