Diary
Moje deti
Not translated into English
Elena Maróthy-Šoltésová · 1924
Synopsis
Notes and stories in which a mother follows her daughter Elenka and her son Ivan from their birth. She observes the awakening of their souls and seeks to understand their nature in order to guide them better, mixing diary notes, sketches and major scenes, and what she herself experiences as a mother and of the social questions of her time. Literary historians have read in it by turns a psychological novel, a novel of initiation, a novel of lost illusions and a novel of education.
Context
The two stories that make up the book, Umierajúce dieťa and Môj syn, first appear in the journal Živena, before being collected in volume form in 1923 and 1924. The author begins her notes when her daughter is about three years old; the book grows gradually, and some parts are added years later. Compared with her earlier works, it leaves idealising art for documentary writing. It has been translated into several European languages, and is regarded as a portrait of childhood without equivalent until then in Slovak letters.
Who it is for
A long mother's diary, reserved and precise, to be read slowly, in fragments, by those who like accounts of childhood.
Prizes and reception
Its author's best-loved work, and a figure apart in the Slovak literature of her time.