“She Who Remains” by Rene Karabash: Gender, survival and defiance in the Balkans4 min read
“Mothers here become pregnant hoping for boys, so they do not bring shame upon the family.”
A life rewritten for survival
Rene Karabash’s She Who Remains, 2026 (Остайница, 2018) takes readers to the Accursed Mountains of northern Albania, where tradition can shape every part of a person’s life. Its central character, Bekija, escapes an arranged marriage by becoming a sworn virgin. She gives up marriage and sexuality and begins living socially as a man under the rules of the Kanun, an old customary code.
Taking the name Matija gives her freedoms that would otherwise have been denied to her. But those freedoms come at an enormous cost. Through family tragedy, blood feuds, forbidden love and suppressed desire, the novel asks whether survival can ever truly count as freedom when it requires someone to bury part of who they are. Karabash tells this story in lyrical, unconventional prose, often blurring the line between poetry and fiction, and without using quotation marks or capitalisation. The style can initially feel unusual, but it suits a character whose identity, memories and emotions refuse to fit into neat categories.
Bekija’s decision to live as Matija comes from a specific patriarchal tradition. The sworn-virgin custom allowed some women to assume male social roles, but only by renouncing relationships, sexuality and conventional family life. Even so, the novel unsettles rigid ideas about what it means to be a man or a woman. It explores same-sex desire, gender performance and the difference between an identity someone chooses and a role imposed by society. That makes the book especially relevant in Bulgaria, where discussions about gender and LGBTQ+ people are often highly politicised. Karabash does not write a manifesto or offer simple labels. Instead, she gives readers a human story about the damage caused when society treats identity as a threat and conformity as a moral duty.
A novel in the middle of Bulgaria’s culture wars
In Bulgaria, She Who Remains has inevitably been read through contemporary arguments about gender, sexuality and LGBTQ+ rights. In recent years, public debates over gender identity and LGBTQ+ rights have become increasingly polarised. In August 2024, Bulgaria amended its education law to prohibit the promotion in schools of ideas related to “non-traditional sexual orientation” and gender identity different from biological sex, intensifying an already polarised national debate over LGBTQ+ rights. Against this backdrop, Karabash’s novel has acquired a resonance that extends far beyond literature. Although the sworn-virgin tradition belongs to northern Albania rather than modern transgender identities, the novel invites readers to question rigid assumptions about masculinity, femininity and the social roles assigned to each. Rather than engaging directly in political arguments, She Who Remains humanises questions that have often been reduced to slogans, encouraging empathy where public debate has frequently produced nothing but confrontation.
From Bulgaria to an international readership
First published in Bulgarian as Ostaynitsa (Остайница, 2018), the novel has become one of the most internationally visible works of recent Bulgarian literature. Its exploration of gender, survival and forbidden love earned it a place on the 2026 International Booker Prize shortlist.
The novel’s international recognition is significant because Bulgarian literature still struggles for visibility in many major publishing markets. However, just like the global success of Georgi Gospodinov, Karabash’s reception shows that stories rooted in local history and culture can speak powerfully to readers everywhere.
Its appeal is not difficult to understand. The setting may be specific, but its questions are universal: Who gets to define us? How much of ourselves must we sacrifice to be safe? And what happens when the only available form of freedom is another kind of prison?
Why the novel matters
She Who Remains is worth reading because it works as a love story, a family tragedy, a feminist critique and a reflection on identity all at once. It does not ask readers to admire Bekija simply as a symbol of resistance. She is complicated, wounded, scared and sometimes contradictory. Her choices are shaped by fear, love, loyalty and the need to survive. That complexity makes her feel real and relatable.
The novel also reminds us that tradition is rarely harmless simply because it is old. Customs can provide belonging and continuity, but they can also control bodies, restrict choices and turn violence into an accepted part of everyday life.
Karabash ultimately leaves us with an uncomfortable question: what kind of freedom is possible when a person must become someone else in order to live?
