Born of Guilt

‘Joanna Elmy possesses the rare ability to tap into a collective womanhood and speak its voice’ - Rene Karabash

I finally took an oath to never listen to these women, to do the exact opposite of what they had done. If they had followed their own advice and were this unhappy, something must be wrong. Their complacency filled me with terrible fear. I rejected them, I refused them their right to live inside me.

Newly arrived in America, Yana spends her days in a series of dead-end service jobs and her nights meeting other immigrants. She breathes easier amidst the chaos of this bright new world, but her thoughts keep returning to her family and the country she left behind.

Working as a doctor in a Bulgaria haunted by communism, Yana's beautiful mother Lily believes she has escaped the dark horrors of her childhood, until she finds herself trapped once more in a violent marriage.

And Lily's own mother, Eva, is slowly losing herself in the embroidery of her memories. She urges Yana not to make the same mistakes she and Lily did - not to do everything her family tells her.

‘One of the most powerful debuts I have encountered in recent years. Unmissable.’ - Georgi Gospodinov

‘Following three women weathering violent marriages, political collapse, and the ghosts of their pasts, Born of Guilt delivers a tenacious, heartrending exploration of what it truly means to survive’ - Lidija Hilje, author of Slanting Towards the Sea

Translated by the author and the International Booker Prize winning translator Angela Rodel