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ABOUT AUTHOR Laura Vogt (Teufen, 1989) studied creative writing at the Swiss Literature Institute in Biel and Cultural Studies at the University of Luzern. Her first novel So einfach war es zu gehen came out in 2016. She is also the author of numerous short stories and articles as well as lyrical and dramatic texts. She started writing her second novel Was uns betrifft (What Concerns Us) just two months after having her first child. In her work, Laura is particularly interested in exploring the complexity of relationships, maternity, as well as inquiring into the many forms that womanhood can take. She is currently working on her third novel. Laura lives in the canton of St. Gallen.

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DESCRIPTION. Rahel and Fenna are in their late twenties and early thirties. They are sisters. Their mother Vera brought them up by herself. Vera started a series of romantic relationships with other women, and now suffers from breast cancer. Rahel, a jazz singer, is pregnant and single but in love with writer Boris with whom she eventually moves. While she seems to embrace maternity and family life, she falls pregnant from Boris, and her body turns into a complete alienated part of herself. When the baby is born, she rejects maternity; at the same time, she cannot stop breastfeeding the baby. In the meanwhile, Fenna expects a child from Luc, a man who can turn from charming hippy to aggressor in a heartbeat, raping her on a woodland walk well into their relationship. We follow Fenna throughout her complex response, from rage, to acceptance, to feelings of responsibility and guilt. WHAT CONCERNS US is a blunt depiction of pregnancy, sex, maternity and relationships through the lives of two women.

PREVIEW (PAGES 1-4)

PREVIEW (PAGES 1-4)

QUEENLESS

QUEENLESS

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 TA FIRST TRANSLATION PRIZE

Republic of Consciousness Prize Reading Club Pick for August

Polish Prizes:
Shortlisted for the Conrad Prize 2020
Shortlisted for the Nike Literary Award 2020
Shortlisted for the O!Lśnienia Award 2020
Shortlisted for the Empik Discovery Award 2020
 
"I read it in one sitting." Colin Field
 
"I began and finished this novel in one day and I truly believe it is
one of the most beautiful and moving books I’ve ever read."
                                                                                                        Rosa Rogers
 
Queenless explores a daughter's mixed love for a mother she is losing. Playing with form and content, this is a fierceless story about the desire to live; about great, crazy and greedy love between a mother and a daughter. Marcinów finds her own language to describe loss and extreme intimacy: trance-like, strong, witty, yet trembling, cruelly honest, full of tenderness and longing.
 
Mothers & Daughters by Laura Allsop
 
Mira Marcinów Mira Marcinów (Szczecinek, 1985) is a writer and assistant professor at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. For her academicwork on psychology, she was shortlisted for the Polityka Science Award (2019) andwon the Prime Minister's Award (2015). Queenless is her fiction debut. It won the2020 Polityka Passport Prize and was shortlisted for numerous prizes, including the2021 Nike Literary Award.
 
Maggie Zebracka is a writer and translator from Chicago. A recipient of a 2021 National Endowment for the Arts translation grant, she holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Vanderbilt University and an MFA in Literary Translation from the University of Iowa, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow.
 
 
 
 
 
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