Marshlands

• The new novel by bestselling author Jarka Kubsova
• Jarka Kubsova's debut "Bergland" sold more than 50,000 copies
• Sample translation available here

Two women separated by centuries, connected by their desire for self-determination.

It is the year 1580. Abelke Bleken lives in the marshlands of Hamburg, where she single-handedly runs a farm, defying seasons and tides, while trying to assert herself against her neighbours in a time that is perilous for independent women. Almost five hundred years later, Britta Stoever moves to the marshlands with her husband and children. She has given up her job as a geographer for the family, and her new home is still unfamiliar to her. She takes long walks through the barren landscape, observes nature and learns to read the traces of the past in mudflats and dike lines. In the process, Britta finds out about Abelke’s life, with its exclusions and injustices that are alarmingly still relevant. Fascinated, she delves deeper and deeper and realises how much she learns about herself from the other woman’s life.

"Jarka Kubsova sets a monument to the woman whose fate still strongly captivates her novel heroine Britta today." - Brigitte, Angela Wittmann

"[...] high poetic beauty." - Tagesspiegel, Ulrike Baureithel

"An exciting, stirring reading experience!" - NDR, Daniel Kaiser

"Artful, touching and gripping [...]" - Hamburger Abendblatt, Birgit Reuther