Slovakia

The Equestrienne by Uršula Kovalyk, translated by Julia and Peter Sherwood was published by @parthianbooks in 2016, but I read a 2021 reprint that I found in Oxford Blackwells.

This was a slightly wild, earthy introduction to Slovak fiction. A short coming of age novel, set against the last years of Czechoslovakia's communist rule, in which Karolina recounts the part of her life she most enjoyed, as an Equestrienne.

"The sun baked down on the roof tiles. It was melting the tarmac in the yard where a rider was hosing down a horse. The gelding stood there patiently. Sparkling in the sun, the water formed tiny mirrors of liquid on its back.

'There's a peasant in a wide-brimmed straw hat inside him,' I blurted out. Romana raised her eyebrows in incomprehension."

There's a lot packed into 80 pages, a lot about Karolina and her family but the book also delivers a powerful impression of the culture that is raising Karolina. This is a story that will stay with me.