Name: Intimno
Price: 27 EUR
Availability: SoldOut
ISBN: 9789612841102

Intimately

Intimno

Gabriela Babnik

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Genre:: Novel
Year of publication:: 2015
Number of pages:: 480
Rights sold:: Croatia (Sandorf), Serbia (CLIO)
Available reading materials:: English sample translation

In Intimately, the reader travels between Paris, Ljubljana and New York and follows three narrative threads: the love story between Slovenian Janina and Fadul, a former journalist from Chad, who fled to Europe when his work criticised one too many elites; the relationship between young Amina and the much older Tibor, as they deal with the death of their toddler daughter Izabela; and the story of New York artist Deana who enters the intimate lives of her models through photography. From time to time, another voice, the voice of a mysterious character named Tay, crops up and gradually reveals the connections between these three stories about identity, foreignness and the limitations of free will. While the novel has a very wide scope in terms of both geography and the themes it considers – from identity to sexuality, gender and racism – it stays true to its title in intimately exploring human relationships, both inside and outside of families.

When something happens, the happening alone is not essential. What is essential is the acknowledgement that it happened.

Shortlisted for the Kresnik Award for best novel of the year 2016

Babnik’s latest novel concerns itself with intersections between sexuality, gender and race. Her work distinguishes itself by its intellectual courage, nuanced and finely-wrought stylistic approaches, intricate composition, acute political awareness and – perhaps surprisingly – humour.

Dr Ranka Primorac, Lecturer in English at the University of Southampton and an Associate of the Department of African Languages and Cultures at SOAS, London
The names of the characters making up these couples – Fadul and Janina, Amina and Tibor, Aaron and Deana – are unfamiliar to Slovenian ears, immediately indicating the theme ubiquitous in all Babnik’s work, i.e. the question of foreignness, of the individual’s anxiety in a world to which they clearly don’t belong and which directly or indirectly lets them know that it considers them unnecessary.

LUD Literatura
In her most extensive work to date, the author returns to her specific and distinct style that combines exceedingly metaphoric writing with direct eroticism. However, motifs typical of magic realism don’t turn up as often as we’re used to from her previous novels, and the story is thus much more grounded and focused on the brutal here and now.

Radio Študent