Sons, Daughters

Here the Croatian poet and writer depicts a wrenching love between a transgender man and a woman as well as a demanding love between a mother and a daughter in a narrative about liberation of the mind, family, and society.

This is a story of hidden queer and trans relationships, the effects of a near-fatal accident, and an oppressed childhood, in which Ivana Bodrožić tackles the issues addressed in her previous works—issues of otherness, identity and gender, pain and guilt, injustice and violence.

A daughter is paralysed after a car crash, left without the ability to speak, trapped in a hospital bed, unable to move anything but her eyes. Although she is immobilised, her mind reels, moving through time, her memories a salve and a burden. A son is stuck in a body that he feels is not his own. He endures misperceptions and abuse on the way to becoming who he truly is. A mother who grew up being told she was never good enough, in a world with no place for the desires and choices of women, carries with her the burden of generations.

These three stories run parallel and intertwine.