Moral

Anna, a twenty-seven-year-old Swedish writer, arrives in a university town in the Czech Republic to write her doctoral thesis on moral philosophy. Her supervisor—an internationally renowned philosopher in his fifties—meets her at the station, and the tension between them is palpable from the very first moment. Glances, veiled remarks, and alcohol soon transform the mentorship into something more. Anna’s thesis focuses on the relationship between morality and literature: "How does literature affect our ethical reflections? Is inspiration a positive force? Can novels that make something bad appear useful be edifying—or, at the very least, clarifying?" These are not simple questions. It is easier to answer another one: Is it a good idea to have a sexual relationship with your supervisor, a man twenty years your senior? No, it is not. Yet Anna persists in her behavior, even while aware of her own self-destructive tendencies. She writes to make sense of it all, driven by the seductive power of doing the "forbidden" or finding liberation in submission, unsure whether she is following her own will or his. In this way, sexual desire, the craving for the forbidden, literature’s urge to create truth, and philosophy’s drive to explain it all intertwine in a captivating, elegantly woven story about Anna and her daring willingness to confront her dark side in all its raw honesty.