Trafika Europe 11 - Swiss Delights

Trafika Europe 11

particularly toxic resonance in the charged political atmosphere of his adoptive country. Unemployed, gay, and an African immigrant, Mwána is a triple outsider in his community. His lover Ruedi, too indolent to work and too proud to ask his wealthy family for support, is not too proud to live off of Mwána and his terminally ill mother. Lobe’s narrator is engaging, good-humored, and clear-sighted and he is not afraid to call things as he sees them with a tonic dose of irony. DanaGrigorceamoved to Switzerland fromRomania after completing her university studies. She brings an Eastern flair and delightfully dark humor to her storytelling. Victoria, the protagonist of Grigorcea’s novel An Instinctive Feeling of Innocence , has returned to Bucharest after several years in Zurich to work as an upper-level bank employee. After the bank is robbed at gunpoint—perhaps an inside job—Victoria is placed on leave, supposedly so she can process the traumatic experience. She spends this time rediscovering both her hometown and her own life, seeing the Bucharest of her childhood not only with the eyes of an adult but also from a Westernized perspective. Gradually, the unspoken

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