The Secret Box

On the cusp of womanhood, Daina Tabūna’s heroines are constantly confronted with the unexpected. Adult life seems just around the corner, but so are the kinds of surprise encounter which might change everything.

Two siblings realise they’re too old to be playing with paper dolls and begin to re-examine their close relationship. A girl who dreads visiting her religious grandmother develops her own fixation with Jesus. And a disaffected young woman, listlessly wandering the streets, stumbles into an awkward relationship with an office worker. The narrators of these three stories each try, in their own way, to make sense of how to behave in a world that doesn’t give any clear answers.

The Secret Box features three stories from Pirmā reize (Mansards, 2014): ‘Deals with God’ (‘Darījumi ar Dievu’), ‘The Secret Box’ (‘Slepenā kaste’) and ‘The Spleen, My Favourite Organ’ (‘Liesa, mans mīļākais organs’).