This poetry collection masterfully weaves themes of identity, resilience, and the search for meaning against the backdrop of an endless winter.

Katarína Kucbelová’s whitewards is a haunting and deeply moving sequence of poems that unfolds in a stark, snowbound landscape where winter seems endless. Three unnamed figures struggle to find their way through a snow-covered mountainside, grappling with uncertainty, unspoken fears, and the weight of questions they can barely put into words. Framed as a series of brief fragments and longer passages that use a range of narrative and cinematic techniques, the collection explores themes of identity, survival, and the search for meaning in a time of global crisis—whether political, environmental, or technological. Yet amid the darkness, Kucbelová finds light in storytelling itself, offering it as a form of solace, a way to break through loneliness, and a means to endure. The beauty of her images stimulates and inspires, acting as an antidote to the bleakness of the world. This stunning collection of poems explores identity, survival, and the power that storytelling possesses to bring light even to the bleakest landscapes.

One of Slovakia’s most acclaimed contemporary writers, Katarína Kucbelová is the author of two novels and several collections of poetry that have been translated into multiple languages, including The Bonnet. Julia Sherwood is a translator from Slovak, Czech, Polish, Russian, and German into English, as well as into Slovak. She co-curates the website SlovakLiterature.com and is the editor of Seagull Books’ Slovak List. Now based in London, she was born and grew up in Bratislava. Peter Sherwood is a translator, scholar, and retired professor of Hungarian Language and Culture. His translations from Hungarian include collections of essays and short stories, as well as several novels, including Krisztina Tóth’s Barcode. Poet, literary scholar, editor, and translator Viliam Nádaskay works at the Institute of Slovak Literature at the Slovak Academy of Sciences. He is coeditor for the online literary journal plav.sk (Platform for Literature and Research). His poetry collections include A Skipped Connection, Sense-Deprived, and Nosedive, Flickering.