With this first novel, carnal and moving, which she chose to write in French and not in Bulgarian, Albena Dimitrova delivers us a magnificent love story carried by a language “with accent”, at the same time strong and poetic. She also offers us a sharp look at today’s neo-liberal society.
It all starts at the Bulgarian government hospital where Alba was admitted for galloping paralysis. She is seventeen years old and meets Guéo, fifty-five years old, a member of the Politburo. Aware of the communist rout, he never stops working on a report. There, in this sanatorium, then from Sofia to Varna on the shores of the Black Sea, they will love each other. Passionately, absolutely. Monitored by the secret service, in those ancient days that are the last years of communism just before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Three years, maybe four... until the moment when Guéo goes too far: the noose tightens and Alba has to flee. They meet in Paris for a first dinner in French.
