Das zweite Zimmer

Magda Kalandadse is a translator and author from Tbilisi, Georgia. For more than 10 years she has been campaigning on queer and feminist issues in her home country, whose leadership copies the homophobic and illiberal legislation enacted by the Russian dictatorship. In her debut novel “The Second Room” she describes what it means to deviate from the “norm” in a mainstream society where homophobia is rampant. Her protagonist, Elene, is forced to hide her relationship from the world even though that leads to greater and greater isolation. What starts out as self-imposed withdrawal into her own room soon turns into social exclusion. Her isolation breaks open when Lena moves into the second room in her apartment. Lena is a young woman who openly wants to position herself as queer. It appears to be hopeless cause, though, a precursor to a life that will end up just like Elene’s. But Elene will in fact be forced to rethink her own life. She won’t be able to change other people and won’t be able to overcome the dictatorship of the majority. But just maybe that dictatorship will also reach its limits where people start being human again.
Magda Kalandadse’s novel is a calmly narrated monologue about a self-determined life and about a key dimension of freedom: the freedom to be able to make one’s own decisions.