Margherita Rongzhina’s debut novel “Solitary” subtly traces five emotions—the stages of living through grief. The main heroine, Sasha, finds herself in a hospital with a newborn boy and feels that something is wrong with him. She stays alone and tries to balance between her desires and the terrible realization that things will never be the same as before. Sasha will have to go through a long path of accepting herself in her new status, her child who will never be “normal,” learn to build relationships and let them go without panic, and—most importantly—be happy not despite her life, but thanks to it. This is a story about human strength, overcoming, and hope.
“She was thinking. Could it be that a great-grandmother, grandmother, or mother—anyone from the female line of relatives—had confessed to not loving the child, to the fact that for months someone grew inside her without love? Or did they never think about love, never name it—never define it that way? For them everything was decided once and for all, from the moment some someone created the world, the world created itself, and taught everyone how to reproduce and love. So did Sasha—the one who had just given birth, who didn’t love the child—want that from herself?”