Invisible Woman and Other Stories by Slavenka Drakulić

Invisible Woman and Other Stories takes us on an intimate journey of ageing, from the shock of catching a glimpse of ourselves in the mirror as others see us to the actual slipping away of the self. The stories speak of reckonings: with the illness and death of a parent, with the emotional baggage that must be cleared out along with the material remains, with memories and missed opportunities, and with the waning of desire. Told through different narrators (first and third person, male and female points of view, different generations), though always with a feminist sensibility, the stories weave autobiographical and fictional elements in their depiction of intimate moments, following the memories, digressions and associations that arise from a fragrance, a touch of cloth, a photograph. Unflinching and meticulous, Drakulić puts words to thoughts and feelings usually unspoken – deemed either too frivolous or too painful – an internal play-by-play of the gradual disappearance of a person.
Invisible Woman and Other Stories is an articulation of intimate experience, a manifest of irreversible loss and the internal rebellion against the injustices of ageing.

Invisible Woman is a book for all sentient women. – Andrea Zlatar Violić

Beautiful, sad and so very true. – Ingrid Šafranek

This book simply cannot be read indifferently. Shocking, without an ounce of banality or sentimentality. – Anera Ryznar

Slavenka Drakulić’s words are like a surgical knife. – Melania Mazzucco, La Repubblica