Forgottenness

By Tanja Maljartschuk

2016

First Published

3.84

Average Rating

256

Number of Pages

7H49M

Audio Length

From one of Ukraine’s most prolific contemporary authors comes this profound novel of belonging and uprootedness, as understood by two exiles across time. Winner of the BBC Ukrainian Book of the Year Award and the German Usedom Prize, Forgottenness movingly―and unflinchingly―illuminates the intricacies of the Ukrainian experience in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. An exceedingly anxious young narrator grapples with a host of conditions, from obsessive-compulsive disorder and alcoholism to a creeping sense of agoraphobia. As her symptoms deepen, she finds unexpected solace and companionship in researching the historical figure of Viacheslav Lypynskyi (1882–1931), a social and political activist of Polish descent who played a pivotal role in the struggle for Ukrainian independence―and just so happened to struggle with hypochondria. Through a series of mesmerizing digressions, the narrator’s own family saga is told in parallel with Lypynskyi’s, culminating in “an impressively sincere self-inquiry about identity”?(Jury of the Usedom Prize, led by Olga Tokarczuk). Shot through with wry humor and brilliantly translated by Zenia Tompkins, this urgent work announces Tanja Maljartshuk as a major voice in world literature.

Avg Rating

3.84

Number of Ratings

1,100

5 STARS

27%

4 STARS

38%

3 STARS

27%

2 STARS

1 STARS

goodreads

Author

Tanja Maljartschuk

Author · 2 books

Tania Maliarchuk began with several volumes of short stories and novellas: Adolfo's Endspiel, or A Rose for Liza (2004), From Top to Bottom: A Book of Fears (2006), How I Became a Saint (2006), To Speak (2007), and Zviroslov (2009). Her first novel, Biography of an Accidental Miracle, was published in 2012. Maliarchuk has been writing in German since 2014. In 2018 she won the Ingeborg Bachmann Award for Frösche im Meer (Frogs in the Sea), an unpublished text she read at the Festival of German-Language Literature. Her Ukrainian work has been translated into German since 2009 (Neunprozentiger Haushaltsessing, Biografie eines zufälligen Wunders, both by Residenz Verlag). Some has also been translated into English.[2][3] The short story "Me and My Sacred Cow" was published in Best European Fiction 2013, edited by Aleksandar Hemon.[4] Tania Maliarchuk lives in Vienna.