The selected text presents the first part of the novelette Tancot na dušata [The Soul Dance].

The work examines the consequences for a young girl’s family after her drowning in a flood. For years her soul remains on Earth to continue living with her brother and mother, for whom she felt a deep attachment and pity, but later it decides to leave them and free itself. In doing so, it moves through a space in which chance plays a big role and that is inhabited by figures symbolising the fortuity of life, where the young soul shows maturity and wisdom. Its final walk with a suitcase to ‘exit’ from life is a metaphor for the freedom one achieves when accepting destiny and the opportunities offered by life.

Eminova’s narrative style is comparable to the that of the German writer and poet Hermann Hesse (1877–1962), whom she has identified as an influence on her writing. A striking feature of her style is the lack of details about the geographical, cultural and historical context as well as about the features of the characters, all of which are left to the reader’s imagination. The effect is to makes the narrative and the topics it covers even more universal and powerful.