Boat Number Five
translated by Janet Livingstone
October 2021
212 pages, hardcover
ISBN 978-0-85742-889-9
Emotionally neglected by her immature, promiscuous mother and made to care for her cantankerous dying grandmother, twelve-year-old Jarka is left to fend for herself in the social vacuum of a post-communist concrete apartment-block jungle in Bratislava, Slovakia. She spends her days roaming the streets and daydreaming in the only place she feels safe: a small garden inherited from her grandfather. One day, on her way to the garden, she stops at a suburban railway station and impulsively abducts twin babies. Jarka teeters on the edge of disaster, and while struggling to care for the babies, she discovers herself. With a vivid and unapologetic eye, Monika Kompaníková captures the universal quest for genuine human relationships amid the emptiness and ache of post-communist Europe. Boat Number Five, which was adapted into an award-winning Slovak film, is the first of two books that launch Seagull’s much-anticipated Slovak List.
Read an excerpt from Boat Number Five
More About This Title in the Press
- Monika Kompaníková and Janet Livingstone talk about Boat Number Five on Trafika Europe Radio
- Watch a bilingual reading from Boat Number Five by Janet Livingstone and Monika Kompaníková for TranslatorsAloud
- Boat Number Five longlisted for the 2022 Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize
- An interview with Janet Livingstone about her translation of Boat Number Five
- Boat Number Five shortlisted for EBRD Literature Prize 2022
- Review by Georgina Fooks in Asymptote, November 2021