She Who Remains / Остайница

SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE 2026

She Who Remains is a meditation on womanhood, love, family and honor, written almost entirely in a non-linear stream of consciousness. The primary setting is a remote village in the Albanian mountains still ruled by the Kanun where a woman’s worth is measured in oxen while men settle scores with shotguns. Bekija, whose gender fluidity is rooted deep into her being, is secretly in love with a Bulgarian girl, but is arranged to marry a man. Her only way of escaping the marriage is to take a vow of chastity and become a man in the eyes of the law – a so-called sworn virgin. In a matter of hours, Bekija becomes Matija. However, Bekija isn’t the only person to disappear — her decision to call off the wedding destroys her family. The text is deliberately ambiguous, possessing a fluidity at the line level which underscores the all-at-onceness of Bekija/Matija’s identity. This is a powerful, lyrical work that approaches the concept of gender in visceral, almost primal ways and inevitably discusses the consequences, stemming from deeply-rooted patriarchal traditions.
—Izidora Angel

Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize: “Told with understated poetry, this novel perfectly captures the slippery uncertainty of painful memories.”

“Rene Karabash’s hypnotic debut novel, She Who Remains, nimbly translated by Izidora Angel . . . defies neat classification . . . This propulsive read is a worthy contender for the International Booker crown.”
—Lucy Popescu, Financial Times

“She Who Remains reads like a dark fairy tale from a time when life was lived closer to the bone . . . Bold and visionary, Rene Karabash’s novel unfurls a world of blood feuds and sworn virgins in a dreamlike narration that burns up the page with feverish urgency.”
—Katrina Dodson

“[A] Faulknerian intensity . . . The novel has a lurid, Grand Guignol atmosphere, shifting from narration to poetic incantation and back again.”
—David Mehegan, The Arts Fuse

Published by Sandorf Passage, Imprint of Sandorf