The Well, a novel by Dimitar Bashevski, won the Macedonian prize Novel Of The Year in 2002. In the centre of its narrative is the well as a metaphor for the deep and the hidden, a metaphor for the digging into one’s own soul in order to find the tiny spring of water into which – as in a mirror – a person can see his own victories (and the victories of others), but also the things he might better not have seen – defeats, moral falls, mistakes toward himself and toward others, vanity. The main character, lead allegedly by noble drives, pledges to dig a well for the people of a far away place, but it turns out that his drive is not entirely deprived from vanity and a hidden need to overpower others. The author tries to reveal the spiritual and moral consequences. Past and present are inter-crossing in the novel by two narratives and by interconnecting different destinies.
