The search for identity or why it is not worth growing up: a boy as a protagonist in young adult fiction after 1989

Abstract

The social, political, and cultural changes after 1990 brought thematic and expressive innovations and transformations to young adult literature in Slovakia. In comparison with the previous decades, a completely different reality is modelled in fiction primarily through the character, relationships, and environment. In the literary image of many writers, a partially safe world before the upheaval is replaced by the incomprehension, emptiness, destruction and even toxicity of one's own family. The protagonists, thus, suffer from a lack of emotional and material support and escape into addictions or a substitute virtual reality. The prose of P. Holka, P. Andruška, P. Glock and J. Šebesta has become a means of criticising a new society and an opportunity to introduce both adult and child readers to a wide range of linguistic elements of modern prose through the urgent subjective narratives of the youngsters. The text also reflects on the father figure, who often finds himself at the opposite pole to the patriarchal breadwinner of the family.