#BookReview Jennifer Croft's 'The Extinction of Irena Rey' is a completely off-the-wall and exhilarating novel set at the edge of the primeval forest of Białowieża which stretches across the border between Poland and Belarus.
When the book rumored to be her magnum opus is finished, a well-known Polish writer calls her eight translators together at her home to translate it as the group has done previously.
But the author disappears shortly after they arrive and things slowly, then with increasing speed, spin out of control. The falling apart of the translators' group and their relationship with the author is mirrored in problems in the forest--climate change is having an obvious impact and the Polish government is logging within this protected place.
Mirrors within mirrors, shifting group dynamics, relationships between an author and translators, the natural world at risk, the ruthlessness of creators, Croft writes about all of it here with a deep appreciation for and playfulness with language. #reading@bookstodon