Slovak Literature in English Translation

The novel The Camp of Fallen Women, written in 1993, was one of the first satirical portrayals of socialist life and practices. Yet the novel’s success was all but guaranteed by the theme itself: the re-education of Bratislava’s prostitutes after February 1948 in the spirit of the new socialist morality carried out in the Nováky labour camp – a camp already notorious for its role during World War II when citizens of Jewish origin were interned there. In 1997 the novel was made into a film directed by Laco Halama with a screenplay by Anton Baláž, and in 1998 it premiered at the Berlinale film festival.