Cristina Boncea

Hyena, a girl of almost fourteen, returns home after a long absence from her family. She is welcomed with equal parts enthusiasm and scepticism by Becks, her twin sister, who tries to rebuild their relationship and make up for all those lost years. But the secrets kept by their mother, stepfather and both girls threaten to come to light with the arrival of their strange uncle from America.

Reading this book means leaving behind all the clichés you’ve heard about young people today. Sex, drugs, alcohol, nights out clubbing, designer clothes? For Becks and Hyena, these are merely the starting point for their own reflections on life and ways of relating to it – a very strange way of relating to it, at that…

A novel that reads like a fascinating, dizzying journey, filled with dark humour while also offering a careful celebration of extreme individuality.

From the original 2015 back-cover blurb, translated from Romanian.

Reception

• In an early review of Octopussy, writer Lorena Lupu described the novel as structurally uneven but singled out Boncea’s prose for its intensity and originality, writing that its language revealed “a talent unlike almost anything I had seen before.” She concluded: “A stylist has been born.”