Death of a Prima Donna | Brina Svit
Who really was Lea Kralj? What was the truth about the beautiful, mysterious, passionate diva who was admired and f-ted throughout her career and who thrilled opera house audiences in cities across Europe? What was her relationship with her mother? And what really happened behind the curtains of her fourth-floor flat by the river, at the height of her fame, during her last summer in Ljubljana? The only person who may be able to shed further light on the enigma of Lea Kralj is the narrator of this novel, a young Frenchman who first met her, in curious circumstances, in Madrid, and pursued her obsessively to Paris, Milan and eventually to Slovenia. Their relationship, neither sexual nor sycophantic, but one of mutual dependency, remains inexplicable to him. All he knows is that he will forever be dazzled by his memories of Lea Kralj's voice, her radiating presence and her beauty, and by certain aspects of her life, as tragic and doomed as any of the stage heroines whose roles she sang. As was apparent in her first novel to be translated into English, the internationally acclaimed Con Brio, Brina Svit writes with a rare poetic facility and rich musicality of expression. Her new novel is a stylistic tour de force which can only enhance her growing reputation. 'Consumes us like a bout of fever- Disconcerting and brilliant.' Elle, reviewing Con Brio. 'Brina Svit likes women who are enigmatic, elusive, those who always seem to be elsewhere, who have the appearance of of captive birds, wounded by some love affair or other, suspected of mysterious desires. ... [she] displays an exceptional gift for describing the beauty of her country, its green hills and valleys... just as can evoke douceur de vivre marvellously, and tapas in Madrid's Plaza Mayor, bicycle rides in Paris, visiting the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the magical mist of Milan, a bar called Marienbad.' JEAN-LUC DOUIN, Le Monde
Death of a Prima Donna | 
