Taborišče padlih žensk

Tábor padlých žien

Slovakia

Anton Baláž

Women who have fallen are allowed to go to any work in and outside the camp with female guards. Contact with assigned men is limited to a minimum. It may only occur during educational activities where the participation of both sexes is unavoidable, at theater rehearsals, and at group recitations.

The novel, in Orwellian style, depicts a cruel and grotesque image of the lives of people behind the Iron Curtain: the lives of Bratislava prostitutes who are sent by the communist authorities to the Nováke labor camp, a former Jewish concentration camp, for re-education. The novel, which was created based on extensive documentary material, is set in Bratislava in 1949, two years after the communist coup and seizure of power. The stories of four prostitutes are at the forefront. In the fight for human dignity, which is mercilessly trampled on during their re-education by the perverted communist philosophy of social engineering, their fates acquire a dramatic dimension throughout the novel. Despite the seriousness of the topic and the documentary nature of the narrative, the work is written in the writer’s characteristic tragicomic and ironic-parodic tones.

Anton Baláž was born in 1943 in Lehota and is considered one of the most important contemporary Slovak writers. He studied journalism, was a journalist and editor, and worked in the office of the Slovak President. He is also a screenwriter for radio, television, and film, but is best known as a novelist.

Among other things, he wrote the novels Shadows of the Past (1978), Here You Are (1983), Lifelong Love (1995), Penelope's Return (1998), and The Forgotten Land (2000), and The Gods of the Four Seasons (2003). The Camp of Fallen Women (1993) was also made into a film of the same name in 1997.

He received the Slovak Writers' Association Award for his novel Tu živite, and three of his works were awarded by the Slovak Literary Fund, and he has been awarded several times at foreign and domestic radio drama festivals.

The translation was made into English. It was translated by Jonathan Gresty.

Jonathan Gresty

translator

Jonathan Gresty (born in Peterborough, UK, 1965) holds a BA in English Literature (Durham University), an MA in Creative Writing (Manchester Metropolitan University) and a PhD in Translation Studies (University of Prešov). He lectures in academic writing and translation at the Faculty of Arts, University of Prešov, and also works as a translator and proofreader. He has published dozens of literary and non-literary translations from Slovak into English, and is particularly interested in collaborating with contemporary writers. His hobbies include music (classical and popular) and running.