Synopses & Reviews
A rapturous novel of love, longing, and exile, The Silent Woman depicts a twentieth century woman's life against a backdrop of war and political turmoil.
Sylva, half Czech and half German, is born into an aristocratic family and lives in a castle outside Prague. She marries a man she doesn't love and is seduced by the joyful madness of Paris in the 1920s as an ambassador's wife. When the Nazis force her to state her loyalty, she capitulates, not realizing how this decision will inform and haunt the rest of her life. Sylva's story is interwoven with a contemporary sex chronicle of her son Jan, a world-renowned mathematician and émigré living in the United States, who exudes the restlessness of a man without a country.
Monika Zgustova was born in Prague and lives in Barcelona. She has published seven books, including novels, short stories, a play, and a biography. La muier silenciosa (The Silent Woman, 2005) was a finalist for the National Award for the Novel, given by the Spanish Ministry of Culture. Zgustova has translated more than fifty books of Russian and Czech fiction and poetry, including the works of Milan Kundera, Anna Akhmatova, and Vaclav Havel, into Spanish and Catalan.
Norman Manea is a Romanian writer and the author of The Hooligan's Return, as well as many other award-winning books. He is the Francis Flournoy Professor of European Culture and writer-in-residence at Bard College.
Review
"The Silent Woman is the work of a sensitive, cultivated, skilled, and original writer who deserves our full attention and admiration."Norman Manea, author of The Hooligan's Return
"Monika Zgustova's exhilarating novel captures the passion of a century in turmoil."Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, author of Hiroshima in the Morning
Synopsis
An aristocratic naif colludes with the Nazis, then stands up against the Gulag in this epic of riches to rags.
Synopsis
This "exhilarating novel" of love, longing, and exile "captures the passion of a century in turmoil" (Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, author of Hiroshima in the Morning).
From the "outstanding" Czech writer Monika Zgustova, The Silent Woman depicts a twentieth-century woman's life against a backdrop of war and political turmoil (Vaclav Havel).
Sylva, half Czech and half German, is born into an aristocratic family and lives in a castle outside Prague. She marries a man she doesn't love and is seduced by the joyful madness of Paris in the 1920s as an ambassador's wife. When the Nazis force her to state her loyalty, she capitulates, not realizing how this decision will inform and haunt the rest of her life.
Sylva's story is interwoven with that of her son Jan, a world-renowned mathematician and Russian emigre living in the United States, who exudes the restlessness of a man without a country. With insight and candor, Zgustova weaves a multigenerational narrative of the consequences of moral choices and how individuals come to terms with their own forms of exile.
About the Author
Monika Zgustová was born in Prague and lives in Barcelona. She has published seven books, including novels, short stories, a play, and a biography. Her novel The Silent Woman (2005) was one of two runners-up for the National Award for the Novel, given by the Spanish Ministry of Culture. Zgustová has also received the Giutat de Barcelona and the Mercè Rodoreda awards in Spain, and the Gratias Agist Prize given by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague. She has translated more than fifty books of Russian and Czech fiction and poetry, including the works of Milan Kundera and Vaclav Havel, into both Spanish and Catalan. She is currently writing a novel based on the life of Svetlana Alliluyeva, the daughter of Joseph Stalin.