The Book of Words

The unnamed narrator of the ‘book of words’ has a dark past and with these words – carefully chosen and dropped like a trail through a forest – the reader is compelled to tread with her the uncertain and spiky terrain of memory.

First there is her childhood. She was raised by a wet nurse, who took the place that should have been filled by her ever-distant mother. Then her school days: a piano teacher, a gardener, and her friend Anna, whose mind is filled with violent fantasies.

And, all the while in the background, her father – a man full of knowledge and an idealised hero, until she realises that the world she has grown up in has begun to grind to a halt. Public transport is stopped, businesses are closed, and figures from her childhood disappear one after another – the regime is tightening its grip and it seems that her father is right at its centre.