International Booker shortlist: The cost of living as a free woman in ‘She Who Remains’

“do I look like a woman who has a man, I am a man, Dhana, my body is just a detail…”

Rene Karabash’s She Who Remains begins with an epigraph from Ismail Kadare’s 1978 novel, Broken April: “The Kanun was mightier than it appeared. It reached everywhere…” Even for the reader in India who knows nothing about life in the Albanian highlands, “kanun” is a familiar word. The law. These laws in the highlands are sealed as traditions and prejudices – often brutal in their punishment of those who violate them. And the worst crime, it seems, is to be born a woman.

Karabash’s debut novel, first published in Bulgarian in 2018 and translated by Izidora Angel, has been shortlisted for this year’s International Booker Prize.

Girl, woman, other

Bekija is the stronger twin that survived. Her birth brings no joy to her father, for she is not a boy; worse still, he was promised a boy but he died before he could be born. Her father’s apathy is mixed with frank hatred for her. When he finally does have a boy, Sále, he is even more displeased – the son has no penchant for violence, he dances, he prefers his grandmother’s company. His displeasure terrorises the family; physical abuse a constant threat...

Read more