If you are a woman victim of an abusive relationship, Magma by Icelandic poet and author Thora Hjörleifsdóttir translated by Meg Matich may be a horrible trigger.
The storyteller of this novella, Lilja, whose name is shared with us towards the end, is living a delusion: her dream partner is intellectual although without a proper degree, reads Derrida, needs her once she is about to leace, but when she is in the same room he is intensively chatting online with other women or just cheating on her. She needs the idea of him, therefore she agrees to his sexual fantasies and is playing nicely. She is not blind, but blinded by her own lack of acknowledgement.
And if he is gone, she is gone too, because for him, she uprooted herself from life.
It is easy to judge from outside why someone will accept such an entanglement, but Magma offers a raw, poetic even, descent into the personal abyss of abuse. As predicted, she ends up abusing herself at the highest degree. Someone looking and judging from outside is not there, doesn´t know how it feel to be there and how hard to emotionally detach from such stories, no matter how strong you think you are.
Magma is one of those books too where you do not even realize it is a translation, as the text flows naturally as it is, with a genuine poetic note.
Last but not least, the cover is exceptional, with a simple combination of colours and a distruptive lettering.
Rating: 4.5
Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchaneg for an honest review
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