Largely autobiographical, Why the Child Is Cooking in the Polenta incorporates Aglaja Veteranyi's own experiences as a circus child, refugee, and wanderer . . .A nomadic family of circus performers, refugees from Romania, travels through Europe and Africa by caravan. The mother’s death-defying act causes constant anxiety for her two daughters, who voice their fears through a grisly communal fairy tale about a child being cooked alive in polenta—but their real life is no less of a dark fable, and one that seems just as unlikely to have a happy ending. An actor and performance artist as well as a poet and novelist, Veteranyi was acclaimed for her seemingly “artless” narrative voice, in which pain and hilarity always vie for the upper hand—a voice at once lyrical and jaded, prurient and spiritual, comical and horrifying.