Q&A with Abel Marosi

  

 

 

Abel Marosi is the author of the new novel Divorce Dialogues. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write Divorce Dialogues?

A: A real story I learned about stayed with me. It inspired me to describe the collision of many disparate forces—personal desires and expectations, the pressure to conform to social norms, the responsibility of raising young children, and the influence of friends and family—which create a compellingly interesting situation. It felt like a story worth telling.

 

Q: How did you create your characters Radek and Anna, and how would you describe their relationship?

A: Radek is a divorced émigré returning to Poland, the country he left as a child in the 1950s. After growing up in Peru, he studied and worked in the United States, and when communism fell he decided to go back, hoping to contribute to the country’s economic transformation.

 

Once there, he met Anna—striking, much younger, and impossible for him to ignore. He sees in her not only a chance to redeem the trauma of his failed marriage but also the possibility of a new beginning.

 

Anna, in turn, views Radek as the embodiment of the glamorous West and as a potential escape from her stifling family environment.

 

They marry, but over the next four to five years their expectations slowly drift apart. The balance of power between them shifts, their desires evolve, and the relationship takes turns neither of them anticipated.

Q: Why did you decide to write the book in the form of dialogues?

A: Choosing to divorce—especially when young children are involved—is never simple. Throughout the book, the characters seek guidance from family, friends, lawyers, and psychiatrists.

Anna and Radek constantly talk through their predicament. These conversations shape their decisions and drive the story forward. In many ways, the dialogues are the raw material from which the narrative emerges, which made the title feel fitting.

I felt the story would be more authentic and immediate if the characters spoke for themselves rather than being filtered through a narrator. Dialogue allowed me to capture their hesitations, their strengths, and their vulnerabilities in a more direct and revealing way.

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: Divorce Dialogues spans eight years, and as the story approaches its end, the children come into focus. We see how the looming possibility of divorce casts a shadow over their lives.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I’m researching a more traditional novel about soldiers who find themselves on the losing side of a war. I want to explore how assumed or imposed roles shape people under extreme pressure, and how social cohesion begins to fray when circumstances become dire.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb