Slavi Tomov presents "The Woman Without a Shadow" by Hugo von Hoffmannstal

Slavi Tomov presents "The Woman Without a Shadow" by Hugo von Hoffmannstal on Thursday, April 29, at 6 pm, at the Writer's House.

With The Woman Without a Shadow (1919), the Austrian poet, playwright and librettist Hugo von Hoffmannsthal (1874-1929) introduces us to a fairy-tale world of ghosts, fairies, magical animals, kings and people, in which the colors of the Orient shine with verbal elegance. of Viennese modernism.

The shadow of a woman is a symbol of unborn and unborn children. Questions about femininity and motherhood, about the rejected pregnancy and the desired abortion begin to arise through her image. It is the shadow that is the tense field in which the passions and longings of two married couples, faced with the trials of togetherness, collide, challenge and transform.

"Finding your way alone, like a snake on the ground and a hawk in the sky, is bliss, but love is more than that," says Hoffmannsthal, and that can be a good summary of the book.