Potrhaná křídla (Tattered Wings)

Thirteen-year-old Memesa ran away from home. At the end of the first part, the constant humiliation of, and violence against women in the strongly conservative Romani community of the Finnish Kale culminated in an attempted rape, and the free-spirited girl decided to act. Now she tries to make her way through the gadjo world on her own: first at a children's home, to which she went voluntarily, later at a young offenders’ institution, and finally at a boarding school. Everywhere she goes, she encounters prejudice and racism, but she also meets similarly damaged young people who understand her.

On her journey through the institutions and adolescence, she gradually realizes that she faces yet another form of exclusion—she is attracted to women. Her grandmother Emilia, who – typically for Romani tradition – watches over her protégé from the afterlife, accompanies her through the turbulent events in her dreams and visions.

The second part of Kiba Lumberg's autobiographical trilogy is as rough as the environments in which it takes place, but also as fragile and introspective as the narrator's inner self.

This book has been published thanks to the kind financial support of the Ministry of Culture and the State Culture Fund of the Czech Republic, FILI - Finnish Literature Exchange, and Bader Philanthropies, Inc.