Meeting with Anna Jadowska will open this year’s edition of Women Talking. Although she made her literary debut in the 1990s, publishing in magazines such as Brulion, Dadzieja is her first prose book.

The novel is told from the perspective of a young girl – a daughter, a sister and an observer of a world that slowly begins to reveal its darker sides. Jadowska builds her narrative through emotional tension, small gestures and seemingly minor situations that gradually form a story about growing up, intimacy and loss.

Her background in cinema remains strongly present in the writing. Jadowska works through images, rhythm and detail, shaping the story with precision and restraint, focusing on what remains unspoken. This is literature that does not seek spectacle, but rather the intensity hidden within everyday life and human relationships.

Jadowska’s presence also reflects one of the key threads running through this year’s Malta Festival: an interest in artists moving between forms and artistic languages. Just as CocoRosie are creating their original opera La Mort de la Mer for the festival, Jadowska – a filmmaker – turns to literature while preserving her own distinct way of looking at characters and emotions.