Why the Child Is Cooking in the Polenta

The novel follows a family of refugee circus performers from Romania who wander through Europe and Africa, with the mother’s dangerous act keeping her two daughters afraid. Aglaja Veteranyi, a Swiss writer and actor of Romanian origin, died in 2002. Nino Haratischwili has kept the book for 20 years and staged her own adaptation two years before her Shelf Awareness interview. Vincent Kling translated this edition.