Why the Child Is Cooking in the Polenta (Swiss Literature)

About this book

A nomadic family of circus performers refugees from Romania travels through Europe and Africa by caravan. The mothers death-defying act causes constant anxiety for her two daughters who voice their fears through a grisly communal fairy tale about a child being cooked alive in polenta--but their real life is no less of a dark fable and one that seems just as unlikely to have a happy ending. An actor and performance artist as well as a poet and novelist Veteranyi was acclaimed for her seemingly "artless" narrative voice in which pain and hilarity always vie for the upper hand--a voice at once lyrical and jaded prurient and spiritual comical and horrifying.