Interview

Alina Bronsky discusses her first novel, Broken Glass Park, about a young Russian girl who emigrated to Germany with her family, but is now growing up an orphan in a tough Berlin housing project.

I've heard that you submitted your manuscript by post and received positive responses after only a week. What was your reaction to these responses?

I was so happy. I couldn't believe it. I felt like Cinderella when she is invited to the ball. At first, I didn't tell anyone about it because I thought I was only dreaming.

Are there similarities between you and Sascha?

Some people think so. They say I talk like Sascha sometimes. But I can't see it. Sascha has much more courage and more ambitions than I. I would like to have her strength and also some other characteristics of hers, but under better circumstances of course.

I love Sascha's personality: she's so proud and skeptical, yet innocent and fragile. So determined to assure herself a better future, so courageous. She's a real heroine, isn't she? Which is a rarity nowadays.

Thank you. I like her very much, too. And you are completely right; she is also a very ambivalent person. But I don't think she is a rarity. I've met real girls who are no less courageous than her.

She hates men, but at the same time she is mesmerized by Volker and Felix, which ...