Imunita / Immunity

A collection of poetry that has elicited an extraordinary response from readers. It focuses on the physical existence, its gradual transformation and destruction, on medical treatment as well as the impossibility of reversing terminal pathological processes. The book is constructed upon the metaphor of resilience, on extraneous intrusions into the human body, and the mobilisation of its defences. The author makes innovative use of the tradition of writing-as-therapy, using poetry as a merciless diagnostic tool directed at the lyrical subject and the world around it. She analyses her relationship to herself, her body, the construction of her own self, her new identity in relation to her nearest and dearest as well as to the parallel stories of other people around her. Ferenčuhová’s poetry is unflinching in its frankness and devastatingly factual, her earthy, generalising language dissecting the patient, her lyrical subject, as it turns into the object of medicine and a collection of symptoms. In this respect Imunita echoes Foucault’s critique of the modern constructions of power and control.