Once I Ran Barefoot on Soft Grass (in Ukrainian)

With the premature loss of her mother, Maya also loses her native Belarusian language. She does not understand her Austrian aunt, who takes care of her in a remote Austrian village. In her aunt's secluded house, the withdrawn girl's childhood passes monotonously. Only her neighbor Marek, who was deported from Poland to Austria for forced labor during the Nazi era, was able to create an atmosphere of protection and human warmth for Maya. The sound of his native language evokes memories of her own lost roots and lost language in the girl, in search of which she later sets out. Language also indirectly serves as one of the leitmotifs in the short story "Owls Fly Silently." Its main character, Jakob, grows up in the oppressive silence of his parents' home. The occasional and brief contacts with the outside world create in the frightened boy the idea that the winter nights are not so long outside the forester's house. Jacob's subconscious desire to escape from his fears and his father's abuse cannot but have fatal consequences.