Jsem Paula – Štefánik Ondrej (2021)

Paula wakes her son in the middle of the night. To hug him, to tell him she loves him. Then she posts a photo of David on Facebook. She experiences her child through the likes and comments of others. The tension between reality and expectation escalates. The uncompromisingly realistic novel by Slovak copywriter Ondrej Štefánik is a testimony to the time we are living in right now. The author describes its pathological symptoms mercilessly, skeptically, and with a certain dose of cynicism. Yet, or perhaps precisely because of that, the novel I Am Paula is filled to the brim with humor and clever, surprising insights. The author describes the decay of the old world, which we still refuse to notice, with effortless ease. "But your son is sending letters to Hitler! For fuck's sake, he's just a kid! Let him think that the wind is a unicorn's fart, but he can't be corresponding with Hitler just because your sick father told him to. Of course, he wakes up from bad dreams. Do you realize what he has been told? You think Hitler is okay for developing imagination?" "The child's world is like that. Full of hobbits," Paula responded in a quiet voice, ignoring her husband's outburst of rage. And she considered the Hitler issue long settled. It happened a long time ago. (Ondrej Štefáník, I Am Paula)