Austrian kindness, Slovak nominations

When the Anasoft Litera jury announced the final ten for 2026, it was surprised not only by the forced online format of the event but especially by the selection of titles. Among the nominations this year was the novel Half-lives (2025, Slov. 2025) by Austrian-Slovak writer Susanne Gregor. The book was originally published in German, and was translated into Slovak by philologist Paulína Čuhová for the publisher Literary Bastion. The author's connection to the Slovak literary scene is primarily her origin. Susanne Gregor was born in Žilina, but has lived and created in Austria since childhood. While in German Half-lives is her sixth book, in Slovak it follows her prose Free Fall (2023, Slov. 2024) as her second translated work.

Psychological novel with elements of thriller

The novel itself captivates mainly with its reader accessibility. Instead of experimenting, the author relies on precise composition, genre conventions, and gradual tension building. By alternating perspectives among the characters, she reveals different perceptions of the same situations and the conflicts between intentions and consequences of their actions.

The unsettling tone of the novel is set from the opening scene. “It’s a quiet death,” reads the first sentence of the book. Klara falls fifty meters down a slope, and the only witness to her death is her employee Paulína. The investigation concludes the case as an accident. There is no “motive,” and “no one doubts this version of the story.” However, the circumstances remain unclear. Did a murder really happen? The narration then returns to the beginning of the relationship between the two women, but doubts persist. Small misunderstandings and subtle signs of dissatisfaction can no longer be read without knowing the tragic ending. The result is a powerfully written psychological novel with thriller elements.

Nevertheless, the prose transcends the scope of an intimate drama, which Literary Bastion often disguises in its marketing communication even for its most radical fiction titles. The social scope of the novel is much broader. Through the story of Paulína’s caregiver from Prievidza, working in an Austrian family, it captures the economic conditions of caregiving work. The supposed familiarity of Paulína’s work relationship with Klara, whose mother she cares for, conceals economic disparities and unequal power relations between the two women. Thus, the novel combines psychological depth with a clear socio-critical dimension.

Kindnesses

Initially, it seems that Paulína’s arrival into the Austrian family offers a solution for everyone. Klara can focus again on her career as an architect, her mother Irene gains a certain independence after her second heart attack, and Paulína hopes for earnings that would allow her to move with her sons into a larger apartment. The family where Paulína works as a caregiver is also friendly. They suggest using the informal “tykanie,” give her old clothes, and pay her extra money. However, the feeling of generosity quickly turns into a sense of closeness, and closeness into the right to demand more services. It begins with increasing items on the shopping list, continues with cooking for the entire family, or walking the new dog. Each additional obligation seems innocent on its own, just “another small kindness added to the others.”

The limits of apparent closeness are fully revealed when one of Paulína’s sons ends up in hospital. Paulína wants to leave immediately to be with him, but the Austrian family persuades her to stay until they go on vacation: “I’d be so grateful if you stayed,” Klara says, and even more firmly squeezes Paulína’s hand, “we really need you here, until we’re back, and your boy is taken care of,” Irene adds, “you know how it is.” The language of gratitude turns the request into pressure. A paradoxical situation arises. For the Austrian household, Paulína is indispensable, but her injured son can manage without his mother.

For staying with Irene instead of going to her hospitalized son, her employers promise a weekend at a thermal spa: “I’m sorry, Paulína, we can’t accommodate you this time, but we’d like to offer you something — next time, you’ll go to the thermal spa at our expense, of course.” While the Austrian family perceives the spa voucher as an adequate compensation, Paulína already recognizes it as a deposit for another “kindness”: “What do they want this time?” she asks herself. The gift does not close the previous exchange but keeps the chain of kindnesses and reciprocal favors going. The power imbalance lies not in overt coercion or inhumane treatment but in who can change the “rules of the game” without mutual consent and decide what counts as a duty, what as kindness, and when the mutual account can be considered settled.

Mirbeau variations

The story of caregiver Paulína is not specific to Austrian-Slovak relations but repeats in various forms across Europe. Ultimately, it is characteristic that Susanne Gregor, in depicting caregiving work, employs a whole repertoire of established motifs—from life divided between two countries, through vacations more important than the caregivers’ children, to gifts born of guilt, and even the very word “kindness.”

The novel also shares many similarities with this year’s film by Romanian director Radu Jude, The Diary of a Chambermaid. Young Romanian Gianina cares for the son of a French family in Bordeaux while her own daughter grows up in Romania, and in the end, she attempts suicide due to her mother’s absence. The film is a declared variation of the eponymous novel by French writer Octave Mirbeau from 1900. Radu Jude adopts its critique of class relations and places it in the context of today’s Europe, similarly to Susanne Gregor, showing that although the form of domestic work has changed over the last century, the underlying power logic remains.

In the case of the book Half-lives, the focus is primarily on the inability of the Austrian side to reflect on its own privileged position. The household believes it treats Paulína well because “kindness outside the contract is always generously compensated,” overlooking the fact that the problem may lie precisely in the activities “outside the contract.” The emphasis on rewards for individual tasks ignores the ongoing expansion of work scope and increasing dependence on the caregiver. The family’s relaxed capacity does not serve to ease the existing burden but to accept further commitments (a new dog, a second child) that they could not manage without the caregiver.

The author thus, on a small scale, reproduces a broader problem of aging Europe. As Saša Uhlová writes, from the perspective of wealthier countries, “the possibility of hiring a woman from another, poorer country becomes a salvation in a complicated situation.” However, such a solution does not eliminate the general problem of care availability but merely shifts it. On a European scale, destination countries gain workforce, while families and public systems in the countries of origin bear the consequences of separation and the economic costs of migration.

A novel for the Austrian reader?

In one crucial aspect, however, the novel diverges from conventions. Its uniqueness lies primarily in the unexpected sensitivity with which Susanne Gregor depicts the Austrian family. Instead of a simple dichotomy of exploited caregiver and employer with a savior syndrome, the author places both women in mutual parallel. Paulína and Klara strive to reconcile their work with caring for loved ones, but one gradually conflicts with the other. The work ultimately becomes a means of material care but also deprives women of the time needed for emotional care. It is therefore no surprise that the greatest understanding for Paulína’s needs comes from Klara herself.

In this sense, it can be said that the novel targets directly the Austrian reader, empathetically stripping away the veneer of their own ignorance. It seems the intention works, as the most discussed quote in Austria has become the one that reflects society most sharply: “What a strange place,” she thinks, “drained by the hotel’s abundance and last night’s events, as she travels through the mountainous landscape towards Vienna, to be with her children as quickly as possible. What a narcissistic country, full of people in love with themselves.”

However, the book cannot be confined solely to the Austrian context. It primarily captures the power imbalance that transcends geographical borders. At the same time, it creates a convincing psychological portrait of Czech tension, which subtly accumulates beneath the surface of everyday life, so that even the most banal gestures begin to seem like premonitions of disaster.

Jana Karšaiová not yet, Susanne Gregor already

The question remains whether the nomination of the book for Anasoft Litera is justified. The very status of the award is broadly formulated and allows for works or translations of works by authors “closely connected to Slovakia in some way,” but does not specify the nature of this connection. Literary language, nationality, or citizenship are not in themselves decisive criteria, and the final decision usually rests with the jury. The boundaries of selection are thus determined not only by the award’s statute but also by the practice of individual years. In the past, Anasoft Litera has included translations of works by authors writing in languages other than Slovak, whether Irena Brežná, Ivan Medeši, or Alexandra Salmela. The literary community generally does not question the inclusion of individual works (except for the book Eating by Ivan Medeši, 2018), but when it does comment, it argues from a minority context, prior involvement in Slovak literary scene, or the fact that it is a self-translation.

However, Susanne Gregor pushes the boundary even further. Her work was developed in a German-speaking environment and only entered Slovak literary circulation through Paulína Čuhová’s translation. Therefore, her nomination as part of Slovak literature is more of a construction than a confirmation. The most striking difference is compared to Jana Karšaiová, whose Italian-written novel Velvet Divorce (2022, Slov. 2023), despite the Slovak origin of the author, Slovak theme, and the same Slovak publisher, was not qualified for the award.

Relatively vague nomination rules thus allow organizers to introduce into the Slovak context works that otherwise would not be considered part of Slovak culture. The search for the “best” book begins only after a much less visible decision about which titles are even allowed to enter the nominations. In effect, Anasoft Litera wields the “power” to determine what constitutes Slovak literature and what does not. Its decisions are not binding but, given the award’s status, influence public perceptions of contemporary Slovak literature. It is a pity that the award does not openly address its decisions and leaves them to dissolve in discussions about aesthetic values. Attention to the boundaries of selection is also limited by Slovak literary criticism. The hierarchy of themes was ultimately evident at this year’s Litera festival. When Nina Miskovicsová attempted to raise the question of the “justification” of Susanne Gregor’s nomination, the uncompromising moderator Petra Darovec cut her off due to lack of time before she could even finish her thought. The evaluation of nominated works again overshadowed the topic of how the selection itself was composed. But the boundaries of national literature are not only a technical issue of nomination rules—they have social implications. They decide which languages, experiences, and ways of life we are willing to accept as “our own.”

I see the ambiguity of Half-lives’ position as positive. Monolingual definitions of national literatures are long outdated, and honestly, I often ask myself whether it even makes sense today to consider some concept of national literature. At the same time, Anasoft Litera has long been doing high-quality subversive work in breaking down ideas of what Slovak art means, and it is fascinating to observe how each year it quietly pushes the boundaries further.

In any case, I consider the nomination itself one of the most thought-provoking from this year’s selection. Finally, a novel made it into the final five that, unlike most original Slovak works (except for feminist publications by ASPEKT), does not confine itself to the private world of individuals but openly addresses and criticizes the social reality from which it arises, without cowardly hiding behind irony. Whatever reasons the jury and organizers had for including the book, its place in the final five is ultimately most convincingly defended by the legendary aesthetic quality of the novel.

Susanne Gregor: Half-lives. Banská Bystrica: Literary Bastion, 2025. Translated by Paulína Čuhová.

The author is a doctoral student at the Institute of Slovak Literature of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, etc.

The text is part of the PERSPECTIVES project — a new brand for independent, constructive, and multiperspective journalism. The project is funded by the European Union. The expressed opinions and positions are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). The European Union or EACEA do not assume any responsibility for them.