« I know what you want, » he says. « You won’t get it. »

MUNA ODER DIE HÄLFTE DES LEBENS
(Muna, or Half a Life)
by Terézia Mora
Luchterhand Literaturverlag/PRH Germany, August 2023

Muna is about to graduate from high school when she meets Magnus, a French teacher and photographer. She spends the night with him. When the Berlin Wall comes down, he disappears. Seven years later, they meet again – and become a couple. Muna thinks she has found the love of her life. But as soon as they take their first trip together, cracks start showing in their relationship. Over the years the coldness, unpredictability and violence get worse. But Muna isn’t willing to give up.

Terézia Mora, born in 1971 in Sopron, Hungary, has lived in Berlin since 1990. For her stories and novels she was awarded numerous prizes, among others the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize, the Kunstpreis Berlin, the Preis der Leipziger Buchmesse, the Deutsche Buchpreis and, in 2018, the Georg Büchner Prize. Her books have been translated into 20 languages. Moreover, Terézia Mora is one of the most distinguished translators from Hungarian.