Traveling on One Leg

“The border is not at the border.”

Traveling on One Leg follows Irene, a young woman who flees the oppressive regime of Ceaușescu’s Romania for West Germany. Disoriented and haunted by her past, she struggles to adapt to her new life, where freedom feels just as isolating as the dictatorship she escaped.

Early Chapters: Escape and Displacement

Irene arrives in Berlin, physically free but emotionally tethered to her homeland. The city’s cold anonymity mirrors her inner turmoil. She drifts through encounters with other immigrants, each carrying their own scars. Memories of surveillance, fear, and betrayal resurface, blurring the line between past and present.

Middle Chapters: Fragmented Identity

As Irene navigates her new surroundings, she grapples with a fractured sense of self. Conversations with acquaintances—some sympathetic, others indifferent—highlight her alienation. Flashbacks reveal the psychological toll of living under tyranny, where trust was a luxury and silence a survival tactic.

Later Chapters: The Weight of Freedom

Irene’s attempts to rebuild her life are undermined by paranoia and unresolved trauma. The West’s indifference to her suffering forces her to confront an unsettling truth: escape didn’t erase her past. The novel closes with her suspended between two worlds, neither fully belonging nor entirely free.

Key Ideas

• The psychological aftermath of political oppression
• Displacement as both physical and emotional exile
• The paradox of freedom in an alienating society
• Memory as an inescapable burden
• Language as a tool of both connection and isolation