Marjana Gaponenko

Knowing the proverb about death being the only certainty is one thing. But what about when it is time to die? One Sunday afternoon, following a portentous telephone call, Luka Lewadski feels throughout the whole of his body that it is his turn now. (…) From the moment Lewadski receives the message of death, the novel remains very close to what is going on in his mind, his dreams and feelings. At the same time, Gaponenko arranges her material in Wer ist Martha? (Who is Martha?) so theatrically and humorously, enriching it so skilfully with detailed and whimsical ornithological research that Lewadski’s thoughts and actions appear to be as singular as they are exemplary, as credible as his first physical reaction to his doctor’s telephone call. (…)
Marjana Gaponenko has created in Luka Lewadski a quirky and idiosyncratic character who might have stepped out of a story by Isaak Babel, a child-like old man whose last zestful resistance to death finds expression in language that balances the oscillation between waking and dreaming, between melancholy nostalgia and a hunger for life.

Beate Tröger: “Einmal noch Torte essen im Imperial”
© Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 24 January 2013