The Lake by Bianca Bellova, translated by Alex Zucker. (Parthian Books)
I picked this book up for my reading the world project as it is by a Czech author and I hadn't crossed the Czech Republic off my map, that it also counted for ~WITMonth was a bonus!
I wasn't sure that the book was going to be for me from the synopsis but the whole point of my project is to read more widely (and occasionally out of my comfort zone):
A dystopian page-turner about the coming of age of a young hero, which won the 2017 EU Prize for Literature.
A fishing village at the end of the world. A lake that is drying up and, ominously, pushing out its banks. The men have vodka, the women troubles, the children eczema to scratch at.
Born into this unforgiving environment, Nami, a young boy, embarks on a journey with nothing but a bundle of nerves, a coat that was once his grandfather's and the vague idea of searching for his mother, who disappeared from his life at a young age. To uncover the greatest mystery of his life, he must sail across and walk around the lake and finally dive to its bottom.
Boy was this bleak! At no point could anyone catch a break in the story but all the way through I was kept hoping for the one glimmer of hope/happiness that would redeem the book so it was incredibly well written/translated.
It didn't help that at first I was reading the book as an allegory for the Cold War and expected at some point for the narrative to become more hopeful, so much of the book seemed to be an about the Soviet Union's treatment of the Aral Sea (which I'd just been reading about!) for example. It wasn't until I'd finished the book and then seen that it was a dystopian story it made more sense!
I'm not sure I recommend this book, but I can admire it and it was certainly different to everything else I've read either for my project or for Women In Translation month!
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