Bronja Žakelj: When Life Washes You at Ninety

We live in a world largely constructed through the fabricated reality of social media, in a world of self-deception and repressed emotions. We live in a contractual society in which economic capital has replaced the symbolic one, in which happiness is imperative, your identity is founded on the body and you are guilty of deviation. In such a world, it is not easy to face the questions of transience, fragility and the search for truth. These are the issues that fill the unconcerned with a sense of unease, and are consequently banished to the sidelines. However, life on the margins is often quiet and lonely.

Bronja Žakelj (1969) has a BA in journalism, but her love of writing disappeared somewhere between the lines of magazine articles and editorial offices of daily newspapers. She found her first job in marketing and today works in banking. Since there is not much space for creativity in the world of finance, and her love of writing had never been entirely forgotten, she decided it was time to write her first book. Whites Wash at Ninety (Belo se pere na devetdeset, Beletrina Publishing House) was published in September 2018 to much acclaim. It has been reprinted several times since then and translated into various languages. The novel won the 2019 Kresnik Award.