Summary of Hansen’s Children
“Hansen’s Children” is a novel set in South-Eastern Romania in 1989, focusing on patients who attempt to escape from a leper colony just before the collapse of Ceaușescu’s repressive communist regime.
Reasons to read Hansen’s Children
“Hansen’s Children” explores themes of isolation caused by illness, the decline of communism, and the changes brought by capitalism. While the novel has a rather grim tone, it also has its moments of humour. The book won the Meša Selimović Prize in 2005, for the best novel from Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Ognjen Spahić, a writer from Montenegro, won the European Union Prize for Literature in 2014 for his novel “Puna glava radosti” (not yet translated into English). He was awarded with the Romanian Ovid Prize in 2011.
Setting: Tichilești, Isaccea (Romania)
Original title: Hansenova djeca
Year of publication: 2004
Nr of pages: 170
