Con Brio by Brina Svit
Translated from the Slovenian by Peter Constantine

This passing observation - slim fingers against a white linen tablecloth - provides the springboard for this story of love and jealousy. The author's orderly life vanishes the instant he admires this strange woman's hands; the discipline of 40 fruitful years dissolves. On an impulse, he proposes. She answers without hesitation - yes, she will marry him, but only on her terms. She will occupy his house, but not his bed. When she moves in, Kati upends her new husband's meticulous domestic arrangements, then his sanity. Her stubborn detachment transforms the writer from a cool, amused observer of life into a creature ravaged by doubt, passion and jealousy. With a brutality counterpointed by the elegance and subtlety of the prose, this story dramatises the ruinous consequences of sexual obsession.