Monumenta by Lara Haworth

Olga Pavic's house has been requisitioned. The council will bulldoze it. Her home will become a monument to a massacre.

But Olga cannot ascertain which massacre. Three different architects visit, each with a proposal to construct a different monument, to memorialise a different horror. Olga can't allow them to unearth the secrets held in this space, not until she reunites with her children for a final dinner.

Her aspirational, distant daughter, Hilde, and her secretly queer son, Danilo, both reluctantly agree to fly back to Belgrade. Within an atmosphere of razor-sharp political surreality, Lara Haworth spins a tender, magical story of familial love and loss. Via a panoply of perspectives Monumenta compellingly and playfully explores remembrance and how tragedy can be the catalyst for remarkable transformation.

Hardback
Publication: 4 Jul 2024, Canongate
ISBN: 9781805301967
Extent: 144 pages