Boat Number Five

The moving yet humorous story of a girl struggling to care for herself and others in post-communist Slovakia. Emotionally neglected by her immature, promiscuous mother and made to care for her cantankerous dying grandmother, twelve-year-old Jarka is left to fend for herself in the social vacuum of a post-communist concrete apartment-block jungle in Bratislava, Slovakia. She spends her days roaming the streets and daydreaming in the only place she feels safe: a small garden inherited from her grandfather. One day, on her way to the garden, she stops at a suburban railway station and impulsively abducts twin babies. Jarka teeters on the edge of disaster, and while struggling to care for the babies, she discovers herself. With a vivid and unapologetic eye, Monika Kompaníková captures the universal quest for genuine human relationships amid the emptiness and ache of post-communist Europe. Boat Number Five, which was adapted into an award-winning Slovak film, is the first of two books that launch Seagull's much-anticipated Slovak List.

Product details

• Authors: Monika Kompanikova
• Assisted by: Janet Livingstone (Translation)
• Publisher: Seagull Books London Ltd
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 28.02.2022
• EAN: 9780857428899
• ISBN: 978-0-85742-889-9
• No. of pages: 212
• Dimensions: 160 mm x 236 mm x 24 mm
• Weight: 448 g
• Series: The Slovak List
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies