Alina Bronsky

Alina Bronsky was born in 1978 in Sverdlovsk, now Yekaterinburg. Her father was a physicist and her mother an astronomer. She came to Germany in the early nineties and lived in Marburg and Darmstadt. Initially, she studied medicine but then worked as a copywriter for an advertising agency and editor for a daily newspaper.

She read the beginning of her debut novel »Scherbenpark« (2008 Eng. »Broken Glass Park«, 2010) at the Ingeborg Bachmann competition in Klagenfurt in 2008. The book was nominated for the German Children’s Literature Award and the Aspekte Literature Prize, as well as being performed as a play and then filmed under the direction of Bettina Blümner in 2013. The central character is the 17-year-old daughter of ethnic German resettlers who witnesses her stepfather shoot her mother in an argument. Traumatized, the girl makes plans to kill her stepfather as soon as he is released from prison. But he hangs himself in his cell, sending her into a crazed frenzy. After a stay in hospital, her situation stabilizes and her sense of alienation gradually dwindles. The critics praised this book for its excellent insight into the community, in particular its authenticity, concise real-world language and well-structured composition. »Spiegelkind« (tr. Mirror child), the first book in Bronsky’s planned trilogy for young people, was published in 2012. It tells the fantastical story of 15 year old Juli whose mother disappears. Juli then discovers that her mother is a »Pheen«, an immortal and particularly gifted being, hated by the other people. The second book in the trilogy »Spiegelriss« (2013, tr. Crack in the mirror) brings the social theme further into play: a well-off social class experience pressure from an underprivileged class demanding their rights. After her father dies, Juli lives as part of a »pack« of street children but feels like an outsider. There is no way back to her old life where hostility and betrayal await her. Alina Bronsky has also written novels which are suitable for both adults and young people: »Die schärfsten Gerichte der tatarischen Küche« (2010, Eng. »The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine«, 2011), »Nenn mich einfach Superheld« (2013, Eng. »Just Call Me Superhero«, 2014) and »Baba Dunjas letzte Liebe« (2015, Eng. »Baba Dunja’s Last Love«, 2016). The latter was nominated for the German Book Prize and centers around Chernobyl and its Exclusion Zone, home to the title character and several other seniors who have decided to spend their twilight years there in peace. That is, until outsiders arrive in the village and announce that the community is to be shut down. Alina Bronsky also published »Die Abschaffung der Mutter« (2016, tr. The abolishment of the mother) alongside Denise Wilk, a work of non-fiction in which they pointedly call for a revision of how women and mothers are portrayed in Western society.