Equestrienne, The

It is 1984 and a small town somewhere in the east of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic is in the firm grip of totalitarianism. Karolina, a teenage runaway who never knew her father and who grew up in an untraditional family full of strange women, discovers a riding school on the edge of town. There, she gets to know the physically handicapped Romana and Matilda, a rider and trainer. Matlida begins to coach the two girls in the art of trick riding, an almost unknown sporting discipline, and they found a successful trick riding team.

However, the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 and the subsequent arrival of capitalism threatens to destroy the riding school. With dictatorship of the proletariat being replaced by the dictatorship of money, the team has to turn professional and the girls are expected to be absolutely perfect in their performances. All of a sudden there is no room there for the physically handicapped Romana and the unruly Karolina...

The Equestrienne is a novel about the desire to realise one’s girlish dreams in spite of totalitarianism; it is a celebration of friendship between women and also a bitter acknowledgement that the desire for power can destroy any relationship.

-- Publisher: Parthian Books
Shortlisted for the prestigious Anasoft Literary Award, The Equestrienne is the first of Czechoslovakian author Uršuľa Kovalyk’s novels to appear in English, beautifully translated by Julia and Peter Sherwood. The book opens with an extraordinary scene in which an old woman is goading a stallion to trample her to death. ‘But death is bloody stubborn. It wants to torment me. So I’ll have to gatecrash, like an uninvited guest.’ There is an immediate sense of magic realism, a vein of dark fairy tale. There is dry humour, and sadness. All delivered in clipped, matter-of-fact sentences. Set in Czechoslovakia before, during and after the Velvet Revolution of 1989, The Equestrienne captures the experience of living in a society in which fact and fiction are constantly blurred, and where a little magic and a lot of humour are required. After the opening scene, we meet our protagonist Karolína, who lives with her chain-smoking single mother and hard-swearing, gun-toting, bottle-blonde, half-Hungarian grandmother. ‘Males didn’t really figure in my family.’ Granny’s three aunties live in Hungary, and she takes Karolína to stay with them each summer (leaving Mum home alone to continue her search for a new ‘father’ for Karolína). The three aunts live in a fading Art Nouveau townhouse. They are three crones, glorious in their eccentricity – there is even a wonderful image of chicken feet sticking out of the stewpot. There might not be any males in the family, but Karolína is not short of strong, anarchic female role models. And she discovers that she has a strange gift – of seeing a person’s true inner spirit. But Karolína is lonely, and angry. She hates her mum trying to find her a father. And she hates school and has no friends. So her life is transformed when she meets Romana at the local riding centre. Romana has one leg shorter than the other, is bullied at school, and has a violent, heavy-drinking father. Two outcasts together, the girls become firm friends and teach themselves to ride on Sesil, the old grey horse who has been retired to pasture. Sesil has a true inner spirit, too. He used to be a vaulting horse. And, with Karolína and Romana, he becomes one again. The three of them soar, forming a trick riding team that sweeps the board at every competition. You get a real sense of the flow of movement and energy through the girls’ bodies as they practise and perform, turning from ugly ducklings into proud and beautiful swans. Karolína is growing into herself; it is part of her rite of passage. As is her new friendship with the young rogue, Arpi, who buys her chocolates, teaches her to smoke, and swaps a tape of Pink Floyd’s Live at Pompeii for her knickers. Karolína has no idea why he should want her knickers, but she loves the music and chirpily carries on with the deals: Dark Side of the Moon, King Crimson, Dead Can Dance, all in exchange for knickers, preferably worn for a week. The riding, smoking and music are not just about growing up, they are also an escape from the stern diktats of the communist regime – the ‘drab concrete commie life’. But then comes the Velvet Revolution, bringing about a bloodless overthrow and the return of democracy. ‘Smiles appeared, thawing faces frozen for years in grim totalitarian frowns.’ Is there really hope of a bright new future? I was spellbound. The Equestrienne is short fiction at its best – a slim novella with more power, punch and sheer generosity than many a doorstopper. -- Suzy Ceulan Hughes @ www.gwales