During a holiday on the volcanic Canary Island of La Gomera, which she spends writing and observing nature at length, Marica Bodrožić is asked one day to look after a dog. Within a very short time, he takes over the direction of her days and perceptions. The result is a timeless dialogue with the many other animals in her life: she talks about the violence of her Dalmatian grandfather, who knocks out an eye of her childhood dog Chio out of nowhere or pushes a hungry donkey into a deep cave. Or of the blind maternal anger in the Hessian province that turns the human child into an animal child. However, instead of perceiving this assigned animalisation as a belittlement, the animals' gaze becomes a place of security that dissolves the boundaries between the bodies and introduces new suspended relationships. This leads to a reflection on man and nature, and on fear, vulnerability and grief, which, once passed through, introduces a hymn to life. In flashbacks, memories and philosophical forays, this poetic fabric invokes the present, in which animals, unlike humans, are the pure present.
Literature
Marica Bodrožić, born in Dalmatia in 1973, moved to Germany in 1983. She writes poems, novels, short stories and essays, which have been translated into seventeen languages to date. She has been honoured with numerous awards, most recently the Walter Hasenclever Literature Prize and the Mannes-Sperber Literature Prize for her complete works.
"Such an important, dense, personal, relevant and completely engaging text – engaging with the reader, but also with much bigger things, with world contexts!" – Maria-Christina Piwowarski
