Malina (Penguin Modern Classics)

'An intense, courageous novel, equal to the best of Virginia Woolf and Samuel Beckett' The New York Times

Part detective novel, part love story, part psychoanalytic case study, Malina is a staggering portrait of a writer trying to tell her own story in a world dominated by men.

'I was subordinate to him from the beginning, and I must have known early on that he was destined to be my doom'

Awoman in postwar Vienna walks a tightrope between the two men in herlife. There is her lover Ivan, beautiful and unavailable, who obsessesher. And there is Malina, the civil servant with whom she shares anapartment: reserved, fastidious, exacting, chillingly calm. As thebalance of power between them starts to shift, she feels her fragileidentity unravelling, gradually revealing the dark, bruised heart of herpast.

Reviews

A passionate tour de force