Irena Brežná

"The Thankless Foreigner is an amusing, spirited and wonderfully based tale."

"The Thankless Foreigner is an account of the immigrant experience, fuelled by autobiography, which succeeds in conveying a real sense of intimacy and authenticity regarding the immigrant experience. The main storyline charts the struggle to come to terms with an alien culture – a situation which is compared to being a young, passionate woman forced to endure an imposed marriage with a stern and much older man. However, as the narrator matures, she has a growing awareness of those aspects of her new homeland which are positive. Interwoven with the main narrative are a series of 'mini-dramas' arising from the narrator's experiences as an interpreter mediating between immigrants, medical and legal authorities, and social workers. These often very moving episodes highlight the tragedy and vulnerability of those who flee impossible conditions at home and hope, often against overwhelming odds, to make something of their lives in a new country. Brežná's fluid writing style has a lyricism and lightness of touch which communicate her amusement and bemusement at the collective behavioural traits of the native people in her host country of Switzerland. And her moving depiction of the plight of other immigrants ensures that the serious underlying issues concerning poverty, exploitation and political persecution are not underplayed."

"Her auto­biographical novel is a sad and touching yet, at the same time, amusing book. The young first-person narrator experiences the move to Switzerland as anything but salvation as an 18-year-old. She finds the country, paralysed by the Cold War, an unsettling and very strange place. She observes her own attempts to integrate and vividly portrays the peculiarities of Switzerland and the idiosyncrasies of the Swiss. Brežná intersperses the episodes from her everyday life with "minutes" from her job as a translator. This juxtaposition represents the book's strength. It gives a real background to the accounts of the young first-person narrator who lives in a state of constant confrontation and quarrels with almost everyone. Brežná's book is not just an enjoyable read but also an extremely interesting contribution to the debate on integration currently taking place in Switzerland."

Irena Brežná uses the view of a child and comic observer, who watches how the world works and sees how unfit words are to describe it when we take everything literally. And how we feel when suddenly, our basic principles are no longer valid. "The Statue of Liberty comes along with imperfection" and with the acknowledgement of that imperfection, says the author in an interview.

"Irena Brežná's novel of childhood, which is steeped in the years of building Czechoslovak communism, is precise, poetic, heartfelt and unrelenting – all at once."

"Irena Brežná's novel is a book worth reading and worthy of loving. We can discover in it much beauty, wisdom and humanity."

"A poetic evaluation from the era of building Eastern European socialism full of odd and humorous anecdotes. A child's mind takes the dogma and phrases literally – and thus reveals in them deceit and paranoia. This approach is extremely comic and satirical. It is a book filled with literary utopia."

"A bright and blunt girl, misbehaved and stubborn, as it should be when one is young and takes their strength from the earth. The heroine protects this kind of grounding of hers from premature adult complaining, with a rather earthly electrifying voice that rejects idle talk and sentimentality. No, Irena Brežná's book bears no relation to politically correct, cheap and predictable stereotypes harbored by the West about the East according to some ideological compass. It is much more like the burlesque-sarcastic world-views of authors such as Hrabal, Esterhazy, Cosic, Stasiuk, et al. This cheeky girl, like a modern-day Candide, lays it out for all to see and, without falsely charming talk, presents a variety of themes. This is definitely recommended reading."

"This book is a veritably miraculous parable of dictatorship, which each of us can identify and bring to life with all its images and experiences."

"A slim novel about the dark times of her youth in Bratislava. The Best of All Worlds is what emerges in the head of a child, when he or she suffers under totalitarian conditions."

"It's always difficult with children's points of view. In the case of Irena Brežná's novel, however, it works well, since the child assembles anew for herself the various ideologies that she acquires. Linguistically, it is truly original."

In 2008, the novel The Best of All Worlds was on the SWR Best Books List.

The book was recommended by FAZ journalist Hubert Spiegel in the Börsenblatt Best List.

"It is a very political, a very poetic book that you must read."

Brežná moved further and deeper than Politkovskaya in probing the realities of the Chechen wars. Rather than to stun security personnel with her audacity, as the latter did, Brežná chose to blend in, strove to fall under the FSB's radar. For the purpose of participatory observation she joined a group of Chechen women and saw for herself what Russian troops did. In the opening reportage, after the spa village of Sernovodsk (on the Ingush border) was 'cleansed' of fighters following a week-long siege, the locality's women, with Brežná disguised as one of them, were permitted to re-enter their houses in order to salvage some movable property. What they (and Brežná) saw was wanton destruction: crockery and furniture broken, living rooms defiled, food spoiled, livestock killed or wounded and left to putrefy, clothes slit and trodden into the slush, a copy of the Quran thrown into a muddy yard.