Vanity Unfair

Set in Slovakia, a revealing narrative about contemporary society. An accidental pregnancy, a good-looking man who cares about no one but himself, marriage because the man had a bit of a Christian upbringing, divorcethat is the trajectory of Pipinas life, leading to single motherhood and a thousand cruelties of everyday life because she is an ugly woman in a world where ugliness is worse than a death sentence. At every turn, she is reminded of her inferiority. She cant wait for the end of each day when she can sit in the stairwell outside of her dilapidated apartment and retreat into her thoughts. Her drab life full of indignities dissolves only in her beautiful, cinematic dreams. In them, she experiences whatever she cant do or have in real life. She creates a rich inner world, and her razor-sharp observations, interlaced with a good dose of humor, produce a revealing narrative about contemporary society. In the first English translation of her work, the brilliant Slovak author Zuzana Cignov pulls back the veil on peoples most private thoughtsthoughts that could very much be our own.