The struggles, aspirations and everyday doings of conjoined twins Zlata and Srebra unfold as Eastern Europe transitions out of communism in Lidija Dimkovska’s latest novel. A Spare Life begins in 1984 in the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, where the author was born and began her collegiate pursuit of literature. Another commonality: She’d be roughly the same age (correcting to the book’s timeframe) as her ambitious protagonists, whose “lives are thrown into crisis when an incident threatens to destroy their bond as sisters,” according to a media release. “They fly to London, determined to be surgically separated — but will this dangerous procedure free them or only more tightly ensnare them?” A Spare Life was translated from Macedonian after it earned Dimkovska a 2013 European Union Prize for Literature. She’ll present the English release at Malaprop’s on Wednesday, Oct. 12, at 7 p.m. Free. malaprops.com. Images courtesy of the author
Smart bets: Lidija Dimkovska
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