In six different parts of the world, six women are starting anew. Former swimming champions in an unnamed Soviet country, they chose freedom. But what it is this freedom about? Will they be ever be able to regain their prestige, although they gained the freedom.
In a smooth, non-ideological way, story-centered short novel, Cristina Sandu´s The Union of Synchronized Swimmers translated into English by the author herself, is predominantly a women narrative about a before and after deciding to leave the country on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain. It is inspired by a story of swimmers who escaped from the then Soviet Russia.
In synchron, the six separate stories are immigration stories of women. Women who may have been able to have everything back home, but refusing to adapt to the everyday limitations. But what does expect them on the other side? How would they deal with their new life? Ar they prepared for it?
In fact, I think someone who wants to be free will just follow the freedom aim and leave everything behind just for breathing freedom and nothing else. The rest is irrelevant and those who did this choice know so well how important is to follow your freedom instincts.
I personally loved the prose, both in terms of tone and of poetic potential. It is interesting that the author herself is the translator of her own words, which in my opinion may imply definitely a certain degree of re-writing, more than the one requested by a simple, neutral translation.
Cristina Sandu is a multi-lingual writer currently based in the UK, from a Romanian-Finnish family from Finnland. The Union of Synchronized Swimmers is her first book published in English.
Rating: 4 stars
Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review
No one who chose freedom
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