Guarding Hanna [Paperback]

Miha Mazzini (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 15, 2002

The deformed and hermet-like narrator of this humorous thriller spends earns his keep as a hitman for the local mafia. But when Hanna Woyczik becomes the key witness in a pivotal court case, he is called on to perform the most difficult task imaginable: to move in with and guard the woman for an entire week.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Guarding Hanna is a thoroughly unique black comedy by bestselling Slovenian novelist and screenwriter Hiha Mazzini, trans. by Maja Visenjak-Limon and Mark White. The unnamed narrator is badly deformed, with the face "of a prize boar" and a fondness for Bach. Raised in an orphanage, he leaves when he is recruited to work as a debt collector by a Berlin gangster named Maestro. He is upgraded to "protection specialist" and assigned to guard Hanna Woyczik, a witness to a crime committed by a rival gang member. His only experiences with women have been with prostitutes, so he is horrified to learn that he must spend seven days alone with her as they await the trial. Not only is Hanna unfazed by his appearance, she chats endlessly and drags him along on errands. She gradually makes him her involuntary confessor, regaling him with stories of her ex-husbands and her nymphomaniac mother. It should come as no surprise that he falls in love with his charge, but that's the only predictable element of this delightfully perverse and oddly touching story.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"...a superb introduction to a vital new voice in Eastern European literature..." -- Michael Upchurch, Seattle Times

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Scala House Publishers; 1ST edition (January 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0972028714
• ISBN-13: 978-0972028714
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,107,988 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Guarding your own emotions, January 10, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Guarding Hanna (Paperback)

(This was written by a 40 year old reader)
Rarely have I come across a recommended book that having read it I think about incessently afterwards. The main character of Guarding Hanna, a kind of anti/hero, certainly has few redeeming qualities. He was brought up in a home for delinquents, facially deformed and a constant curiosity to insensitive eyes. Rescued from the orphanage by a petty gang leader called Maestro he subsequently enters his service. When he is latter given the task of guarding a witness to a crime for a week it seems to present our hero with such an awesome challenge. Being a loner, whose previous experience with women had only been with prostitutes, he now must learn to accomodate the simple needs of another person until it becomes no longer clear who is actually guarding or helping who. Through their relationship the reader comes to realise that even though life has dealt our hero such a bad hand there is a real sense of humanity that is struggling to break through the prejudices of his peers, and perhaps that is something that every reader might empathise with and which is why the climax of the novel left such a profound effect on me. It was so unexpected. Perhaps my out pouring of emotions was just from a sense of release from the accumulated tensions. The novel is written in such a way that it holds your attention with every page. Ever entry, told from our heros point of view like a diary, is given a time. One is therefore very much aware that our heros assignment is drawing to a conclussion and that something unexpected must surely happen. When it finally comes there is nothing predictable about it, which makes it all the more shocking, and as I turned the last page I really felt that for a second the world had stopped turning and that nothing would be the same again. Read this book, suspend your prejudices and leave your emotions unguarded, it will be all the more rewarding.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent stuff, June 4, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Guarding Hanna (Paperback)

It's a very interesting story. What happens when a deformed loner is assigned to guard a woman for a week before she's due to testify in court? He moves into her apartment to protect her, and the ensuing eight days bring a lot of surprises and drama. Mazzini has some dead-on insights about modern urban life and how it distorts our capacity to understand each other. Better yet, he tells his story well, with humor, an intriguing plot, two strange and curious main characters, and an exciting conclusion. The book's a mix of detective story, psychological drama, and crime novel.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dark and Rich, July 13, 2005

By 

A. D. DiRenzo (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Guarding Hanna (Paperback)

I was recommended this book by a close friend after having read and enjoyed "Motherless Brooklyn". At first I couldn't see why. There seemed to be little similarity other that a few simple plot points and broad character traits. I quickly found that while these two novels rely on many of the same tools the end products are remarkably different. Each one is immensely engaging read in its own right but "Guarding Hanna" is easily the meatier of the two. I found myself deeply immersed in its world rather than simply caught by the plot. I loved it!