tana keleova vasilkova name

SHATTERED HAPPINESS

424 pages
Released: 2008/11

SHATTERED HAPPINESS

“The novel Shattered Happiness was a smooth and pleasant piece of writing for me, although I moved in uncharted waters – or perhaps owing to that. It tells a complex and intricate story of the main female character Terka and her relationship with her stepson Adam. He is seventeen and seems to continuously drift away from her. She’s sad to see it and she’s convinced that it’s just because she is the boy’s stepmother. I tried to put myself in her shoes, striving to grasp her feelings and thoughts… I tried to put myself in Terka’s role, which helped me a lot. I hope I handled it well.    

I’m happy about it, but I’m happier still with my “prison job”. As I already said, it was a brand new topic for me and I knew I couldn’t pull through that without help.

So I asked Lacko Hanniker, a public prosecutor. He was very helpful – he went through my manuscript, together with his wife. He phoned and told me that apart from a couple of details he needed to correct I did a great job, including my description of the prisoners, prison guards and the overall atmosphere during prison visits.

When I got my manuscript back, it was full of smileys added on the margin of the text parts which Lacko and his wife Anna liked best. I squealed with joy. Anna even thought I must have had a personal experience of prison myself to provide such an authentic insight… but Lacko explained that it’s my imagination that is ‘to blame’.

It seems I still have it.

I had a great imagination when I was a child. Teachers used to tell me off for lying – they didn’t understand that I was trying to create a world of my own… which is actually what I’m still doing when writing my books.”