#RivetingReviews: Morelle Smith reviews ERASED by Miha Mazzini, translated by Gregor Timothy Čeh
Zala gives birth in hospital. All goes well, the baby boy is healthy, but there are papers to fill out, and the staff become evasive yet reassuring: “don’t worry we’ll sort it.” But it isn’t sorted. When she speaks to the Director of the Maternity Clinic, the latter says she cannot find her “in the computer”. She claims that Zala is a foreigner because she was born in Serbia, even though her family moved to Ljubljana, Slovenia, when she was a few months old. Her mother is Slovenian, her father, Serbian, and Zala had not realised she would have to apply for citizenship. Without it, she has no ID card, no passport, and is not eligible for free medical care or maternity leave.
And so, her trial begins. She is taken to the Asylum Seekers Centre and not allowed to take her baby with her. She only manages to leave there when her mother comes to vouch for her and takes her away. At the Town Hall her passport and ID card are removed. She has become an illegal. Her journey becomes a kind of Odyssey as she is trying to be recognised as belonging there, in the only country she has ever known as home. At times this quest becomes like Alice’s journey in Through the Looking Glass, where a sheep knits behind a counter and an egg tries to explain its dilemma. Zala, as Alice, moves through a world turned abruptly bizarre, dealing with kings and queens or their equivalent in power, who speak like automatons rather than human beings.
“The editor” of a well-known paper can only repeat his own paradigm story, with a touch of the Mad Hatter, while “the writer” drones on about old problems which are no longer relevant, and does not really want to know about her problem and that of thousands of other people who have suddenly become foreigners in their own country (having been born in “foreign countries” which were once part of the former Yugoslavia which no longer exists.) “The writer” monologues about himself and Zala realises that he has a state job, state apartment, his awards are from the state, so of course he is not going to support her or any others because that would put him in conflict with his employer, the State, upon whom he is dependent. One might compare him with the vocal and versatile sheep behind the shop counter (in Alice through the Looking Glass) but he has none of her authority and acerbic wit.
All Mazzini’s characters have a drive and often a singular focus which renders them fascinating. Nikola, also an “erased” chats up the attractive women who emerge, newly stateless, from the Town Hall. His transparent and rather pathetic sexual designs are offset by his storytelling abilities, which manage to distract Zala momentarily from the shock and disbelief of her situation. He understands her predicament, since it is also his. He later becomes a friendly face and helps her in a tricky situation.
Even her employer, the headmistress, who is 100% supportive, at first cannot believe that their country could have “erased” all these people, and that nothing is being done to reinstate them or give them any help at all. Bureaucracy, the computer system, it rules, and the hapless government employees, and public servants as well, what can they do? So, they shrug and gesture, mouth their instructions, repeat their lines in the dull play they take part in, but which also secures their livelihood and their basic citizens’ rights.
The liveliest character is the outsider, the foreigner. Mark is American, married, and the father of Zala’s baby. She had broken off the relationship before she discovered she was pregnant but now reluctantly seeks his help. But he too has to abide by rules, and most of all by his particular idée fixe, which is, as a professional systems analyst, to work out what practical steps to take, to solve the problem. He does his best (the editor, the writer, the TV producer) but none of these produce the desired results. However, he is, it turns out, capable of spontaneous action, and inspired ideas, and in the end, it is his original, and transgressive action, which, to Zala’s surprise, turns out to be effective.
Mazzini is a master of suspense and of detailed descriptions of his characters. As each scene unfolds and new characters appear, the reader wonders if this young Odysseus will find an ally, someone who can help her through the dangers to be faced, whether whirlpool, an enraged giant, or a sorceress who turns people into pigs, for a savoury dinner. Or whether the people she meets will turn out to be hostile, scheming, or plain incompetent. Occasionally she meets with good intentions (the TV presenter), but they turn out not to be enough, as he has to bow to his superior. Then there “the writer” who lives in his own world of the past but finds it too comfortable to risk disturbing his sinecure by taking any interest in Zala’s predicament.
Mazzini is highlighting a particular injustice which thousands of people in Slovenia faced after independence. But it has relevance for any political system and its bureaucratic underpinnings. Zala’s situation in Erased highlights the ongoing nightmare of so many. According to the Director of the Maternity Clinic, what matters is who you know and what relationships you have with people who have influence: “This is a country of relations, not law!”
Erased raises the question: What has changed? Independence? Don’t be fooled that it will make things better. A state is still a state and will very likely have its own goals and intentions which may be unknown to us, the people. Who drew up the constitution, who was consulted, and who was informed? “So everything got sorted out in the end? You know it’s not our fault when things like this happen. We’re just people – and we have to do what the computer tells us.” These light-hearted words came from the nurse who was on duty when Zala arrived in the hospital to give birth and first encountered bureaucratic problems. And now Zala is finally leaving with the baby. But it begs the question – why are people so willing to obey? To do what ‘the computer’ tells them, what their boss tells them, what some official or someone in authority tells them? And is the answer really as simple as: It’s a question of who you know and how influential your families are? “This is a country of relations, not law!”
Mazzini has written a funny, frightening picture of a skewed, manipulative state, with delicious descriptions of characters ranging from the naive to the well-intentioned, to the corrupt.
Reviewed by Morelle Smith
ERASED
Written by Miha Mazzini
Translated by Gregor Timothy Čeh
Published by Fly on the Wall Press (2026)
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Morelle Smith writes poetry, fiction, essays and travel articles. She is particularly interested in European literature and wrote the first book in English about the writer and traveller Annemarie Schwarzenbach (The Buoyancy of the Craft, diehard, 2021). Her work has been translated into several languages including Albanian, Romanian, German, French.
Read Morelle Smith’s #RivetingReview of GRIMM’S FAIRY TALES DECODED by Marko Pogačnik
Read Morelle Smith’s #RivetingReview of A SWARM OF DUST by Evald Flisar
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