Mátyus, Melinda / Komporaly, Jozefina (tr.): MyLifeandMyLife

Ugly Duckling Presse, paperback

Publication Date: December 1, 2023

Publisher Marketing: MyLifeandMyLife is one of the strongest pieces of experimental fiction published in Hungarian in recent years, proposing to talk about emotions through visuality. The book's protagonist is desperately in love with a mysterious male figure, and this emotional dependency not only leads her to give up her agency but also gradually paves the way to her suffocation and ultimate demise. MyLifeandMyLife can be interpreted as a reversal of sorts of the Biblical episode whereby the holy prophet Hosea is ordered by divine appointment to marry Gomer, known as a "promiscuous woman," a "harlot," and a "whore," so that their scandalous marriage-cum-performance can act as a warning against idolatry. Viewed from the perspective of the canon, this work is also readable in the vein of La Fontaine's fables, and in this sense it is a non-moralising morality tale that is borderline unbearable yet devastatingly gripping all the same. Melinda Mátyus writes in bold and deeply touching ways about contemporary women and her protagonists examine womanhood in a variety of manifestations and configurations. Mátyus zooms in on the loneliness of socially ostracized women, and is preoccupied with the psychological makeup of those experiencing confinement and forced captivity.