Iso

«Katya had small almond-shaped eyes, in which it was impossible to tell whether she was upset or not. Everyone else could be read by their eyes, but not Katya's — no matter how hard you tried.
Sveta painted people with almond-shaped, expressionless eyes, and mom, if she managed to peek into her notebook, would say: «I don’t see any meaning, I don’t see any meaning at all! In your portraits before, at least the mood was conveyed!» And Sveta thought: «So, I manage to draw Katya!»
Among all the people Sveta knew, Katya was unlike anyone else.»

The story «Iso» by Evgenia Basova about unconditional acceptance, which sometimes blinds and can even destroy, won first place in the literary competition «Kniguru» in 2018, and Evgenia Basova herself was nominated for the prestigious international Astrid Lindgren literary award.