Baba Dunja's Last Love

BABA DUNJA’S LAST LOVE   

by Alina Bronsky

 

Nominations: Dublin Finalist 2018

 

Date Read: June 18, 2022

 

Baba Dunja’s Last Love is an interesting look into an exclusive community that lives in the fallout zone of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown, in a town called Tschernowo. Without intending to, Baba Dunja is considered the town major, checking up on everyone, making sure they have what they need, assigning housing, etc. She is cantankerous, kind and wise, her kids having grown and left long ago.

 

A strange collection of souls have made the decision to return to this polluted environ, creating an odd and insulated community that takes care of their own. They are frequently infiltrated by scientists wearing HAZMAT suits to test their levels of radiation, as well as the radiation of their crops and animals. Most people fear to come so close. This community lives largely in peace, providing for each other.

 

Their peace is shattered when a man whose wife abandoned him brings their daughter to Tschernowo. In a sadistic revenge effort, he passively tries to kill their daughter by radiation exposure to teach his ex-wife a lesson. Baba Dunja knows immediately what he is up to and gets the terminally-ill Petrow to help confront him. What results is a hatchet in the head of this man.

 

Baba Dunja immediately takes the young daughter in hand and covers her tin foil to minimize her exposure, all the while trying to contact her mother. She attempts to keep the girl and the town safe from this catastrophe but the outer world inevitably seeps in. The daughter is released to her mother but no one killer can be identified, the entire town is arrested and brought to jail.

 

Once again, Baba Dunja comes to the rescue and assumes the entire blame for the murder, even though she was only a witness. She is then relegated to prison, where she sews pillowcases all day. Only a stroke releases her from that existence and allows her to return to her last love – her beloved town of Tschernowo.

 

This quirky book was a joy to read and there were many devices I appreciated such as the souls of those who had passed before Baba hanging around the town for Baba to commune with. The personalities of the townspeople are all so quirky, I feel like I have known them or someone like them all my life. An absolute delight.

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