Urodziny

The Birthday is the debut novel of Weronika Murek, a highly acclaimed playwright and author of short stories and essays. Set in contemporary Warsaw, it tells an oneiric, darkly comic story about a middle-aged actress as she navigates the decline of her career and a surreal haunting. This multi-layered, genre-bending novel creatively experiments with classic horror conventions while blending them with a literary tale of creative burnout, emotional resilience, ageing, mortality, and the painful experience of being excluded from society and the workplace.

We first meet the protagonist, Jaga, when she returns home to find that ‘something has shifted’. Most unsettling of all is the presence of an unfamiliar woman in front of her house, who marks the beginning of an eerie – though perhaps imagined – invasion of strangers into Jaga’s life. Meanwhile, her professional life disintegrates. Taking on minor acting roles while younger actresses claim the spotlight, Jaga feels increasingly voiceless, cold, and lifeless – just like the marionettes she loved as a child and the ghosts who now haunt her.

While Murek employs the traditional gothic trope of a haunted house, she gives it a unique twist by turning it into a compelling metaphor that explores a deeper story about co-existing with the ghosts of one’s own life. The novel keeps the reader questioning whether the spectres are real or figments of imagination – delusions, hallucinations or memories – in a timely narrative about how relentless work, societal pressures and unresolved grief can erode mental health.