Aglaja Veteranyi

Why the Child Is Cooking in the Polenta

«THAT'S WHY WE NEED A WHOLE LOT MORE GOOD LUCK WHEN WE'RE DEAD PEOPLE.»

The mother hangs from her hair in the big top. The father is a clown, acrobat and bandit - and as famous as the president of the United States. The elder sister balances on one leg on the father's head and juggles. As for the little sister, she watches wide-eyed and tells the story of this circus family that saunters from country to country without ever really setting foot in a foreign land.
The girl's feather-light narration belies the fact that this is above all a story about fear. Fear that her mother might fall from the dome. Fear of death. To distract her, her big sister tells her the story of the child cooking in the polenta. «When you're afraid, you take your heart in your mouth and smile.»
Aglaja Veteranyi became an over-night success with this, her critically acclaimed first novel. It has been translated into twelve languages and made into many stage adaptations and a film (2012).
Veteranyi committed suicide shortly before her 40th birthday in 2002. From the slim oeuvre she left behind, two collections of prose fragments have been published posthumously. Her work has nonetheless enriched German Swiss literature with entirely new themes and above all a style that glides effortlessly to the heart of the heaviest of subjects. Peter Bichsel wrote of Veteranyi's novel, «It is the most astonishing book I have come across in recent years. The absolute precision of Veteranyis' writing takes your breath away.»

(Christa Baumberger, transl. by Anna Mason Willfratt)

Translation of title: Warum das Kind in der Polenta kocht

Dalkey Archive Press, London / Dublin 2012

ISBN: 978-1-56478-686-9