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Lora Tomaš: An Excerpt from Salty Darkness
Lora Tomaš holds a bachelors degree in Indology and English Studies from the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zagreb. She earned her masters degree in Gender Studies from Central European University. Tomaš co-edited and co-translated two anthologies of modern Indian short prose and poetry- Popodnevni pljuskovi: izbor iz indijskog ženskog pisanja (2011) (Afternoon Showers: a selection of Indian women's writing) and Lotosi od neona: indijski autori o gradovima i drugim ljubavima (2017) (Neon Lotuses: Indian authors on cities and other loves). An early version of her first novel, Slani mrak (2020) (Salty Darkness), was a finalist for the V.B.Z. award for the best unpublished novel of 2019 and later she added her short story Prozor s pogledom (A Window With a View), also a finalist for a European award, to the novel. Her debut novel Slani mrak (2020) (Salty Darkness) earned her the 2020 Slavic award given by the Society of Croatian Writers.
Tomaš lived in Southeast Asia for several years, working as a journalist and literary critic for local publications. She now lives in Zagreb and works as a literary translator and a language teacher.
Read an excerpt from Tomaš's novel, Salty Darkness, in the link below.
Translation by Mirna Čubranić.
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Karmela Špoljarić: Excerpt from Rashomon
Karmela Špoljarić was born in Zagreb in 1967. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Croatian Studies and Yugoslavian Philology from the University of Zagreb. She also holds a master’s degree in the Scientific Study of Literature from the University of Zagreb. She writes prose and theater scripts. She has published the teen drama Nula kuna po minuti (2011) (Zero kunas per minute), which won the Marin Držić award. Her novel Nije ovo Twin Peaks (2014) (This Isn’t Twin Peaks) won the DHK Slavić award. She has also published a collection of short stories Pazi što ćeš poželjeti (2013) (Be Careful What You Wish For), the novel Major Tom (2014) and the novel Rašomon (2019) (Rashomon). Her short stories have been published in various literary magazines. Another of Špoljarić’s passions is creating and running tailored creative writing workshops. She splits her time between Zagreb and the island of Krk.
As Dubravka Šćukanec writes in her review of the novel “The novel Rashomon is a bitter story about many of us, those of us who whine about the past, who ask ourselves at which station the train of life took a turn towards wastelands and bleakness, about those of us who seek causes and blame in other people and events which marked us with life’s misery.” (Šćukanec, Dubravka, 4.6.2021, GKR Magazin).
Read an excerpt from Špoljarić’s most recent novel Rashomon below.
Translation by Mirna Čubranić.
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Tomica Šćavina: Excerpt from A Room at the Bottom of the Sea
Tomica Šćavina was born in 1975 in Vodice. She holds a Psychology degree from the University of Zabreb. She has published two books which are compilations of her psychology columns: Unutarnji kompas (2009) (Internal Compass) and Koordinate sreće (2012) (Coordinates of Happiness). Her first novel Brod za Lajku (2011) (A Boat for Lajka) was shortlisted for the VBZ award for the best unpublished novel of the year. Her second novel, Povratak genija (2013) (The Return of Genius), won the SFera award for the best science fiction novel. Her most recent novel is Soba na dnu mora (2019) (A Room at the Bottom of the Sea). She has also published poetry in various regional literary magazines. In addition, Šćavina has written five documentary radio plays for Croatian Radio, which earned her a European Union award. Alongside her fiction writing and psychology columns, Šćavina has led numerous creative workshops and workshops dedicated to personal growth for children and adults.
Šćavina’s novel, A Room at the Bottom of the Sea, introduces us to Giana as she begins her new life as a cruise ship waitress, naïve to the dog-eat-dog conditions of her new workplace and haunted by her past of coming of age during the war in Croatia. Read a passage below.
Translation by Ellen Elias-Bursac.
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Nenad Stipanić: Excerpt from Neon Gods
Nenad Stipanić was born in Senj in 1973, but has spent most of his life in Zagreb. His short stories have been published in numerous reputable regional literary magazines as well as various anthologies. He has published several collections of short stories: Sprinteri u labirintu (2005) (Sprinters in a Labyrinth), Odlično je baviti se kriminalom (2008) (It’s Great to Be a Criminal). Stipanić has also published several novels including Izbacivači Majke Božje (2012) (The Mother of God Bouncers) and Stvarno je odlično baviti se kriminalom (2015) (It’s Really Great to Be a Criminal). He won the Ministry of Culture Prize for the Best Literary Achievement in 2012 with his novel The Mother of God Bouncers and his novel It’s Really Great to Be a Criminal received the Balkan Noir Prize for the Best Croatian Criminal Novel in 2015. His latest novel Bogovi neona (2019) (Neon Gods) was a finalist for the Croatian Tportal Literary Award as well as the European Union Literature Prize.
Stipanić has worked various jobs throughout his life including all types of manual labor, ticket sales, tourist guide, bouncer in Croatian clubs and abroad, bodyguard, the owner of an art gallery and used book store, scriptwriter etc. He now devotes most of his time to his literary career. He currently lives in Berlin.
Read a passage below from Stipanić’s latest novel, Neon Gods, which the legendary editor Kruno Lokotar described as “…one of the most radical experiments in Croatian literature and an attempt to introduce the genre of bizarre fiction with elements of bizzare freaktion into the local literary scene…” (Lokotar, Kruno, 2019.6, Moderna vremena, https://mvinfo.hr/knjiga/12892/bogovi-neona).
Translation by Vesna Marić.
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Ante Zlatko Stolica: Short stories from his book Close to Everything
Ante Zlatko Stolica was born (1985) and raised in Split. He holds degrees in Croatian Language and Literature and Philosophy. He has written several short documentaries, film scripts and a collection of short stories Blizina svega (2020) (Close to Everything). He is a co-screenwriter for the film Kratki izlet (2017) (A Short Excursion), which won the Zlatna arena award for the best film of the year.
Stolica’s eclectic stories deal mostly with the young protagonists’ ventures into the adult world of work and the string of dead-end jobs they are faced with, set in his hometown of Split.
Read some stories from Stolica’s book Close to Everything below.
Translation by Marta Huber.
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Jasna Jasna Žmak: Excerpt from My Dear You
Jasna Jasna Žmak was born in 1984 in Pula. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Dramaturgy from the Academy of Dramatic Art (University of Zagreb). She then went on to complete a PhD in Literature, Applied Arts, Film and Culture at the University of Zagreb. Žmak has published a book of essays One stvari: eseji o ženskoj seksualnosti (2020) (Dirty Words: Essays on Female Sexuality, a book of prose Moja ti (2015) (My Dear You), two theater scripts Samice (2011) (Solitary Confinements) and Drugi sočasno (2012) (Others Simultaneously), one picture book Pisma na kraju šume (2018) (Letters at the End of the Forest), one scientific study, and countless short stories and critical essays. Žmak currently works as an assistant professor at the Academy of Dramatic Art (University of Zagreb).
Read an excerpt from Žmak's book of prose, My Dear You, in the link below.
Translation by Samantha Farmer.
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Valent Pavlić: Excerpt from Evanesco
Valent Pavlić was born in 1985. He grew up in Zagreb and graduated from the University of Zagreb with a degree in French Language and Literature and Art History. He has published two collections of short stories Evanesco (2016) and Prepreke. Prečaci. (2019) (Obstacles. Shortcuts).
Pavlić’s unique and unsettling tale about a man who embarks on chosen isolation from others will resonate even more for readers who have lived through two pandemic years.
Read an excerpt from Pavlić’s debut novel, Evanesco, below.
Translation by Mirna Čubranić.
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Damir Karakaš: It's Me
Damir Karakaš was born and raised in a rural, impoverished village in the mountainous region of Lika in 1967. The rough, folksy surroundings of his childhood are often present in his work and are viewed through a critical lens. He studied Agronomy, Law and Journalism in Zagreb and worked for several years as a journalist. Karakaš is a prolific writer and his many publications include the travelogue Bosanci su dobri ljudi (1999) (Bosnians Are Good People), the novel Kombetari (2000), the novel Kino Lika (2001) (Lika Cinema), the novel Kako sam ušao u Europu (2004) (How I Entered Europe), the short story collection Eskimi (2007) (Eskimos), the novel Sjano mjesto za nesreću (2009) (A Fantastic Spot for an Accident), the play Skoro nikad ne zaključavamo (2009) (We Hardly Ever Lock Up), the collection of short stories Pukovnik Beethoven (2012) (Colonel Beethoven), the play Snajper (2013) (Sniper), the novel Blue Moon (2014), the novel Sjećanje Šume (2016) (The Remembering Forest), the novel Proslava (2019) (The Celebration), and his latest novel Okretište (2021).
Read Karakaš’s poignant, dark short story about returning to one’s childhood home as an adult and the weight of being confronted with emotions that were thought to have been left safely in the past.
Read his short story It’s Me in the link below.
Translation by Stephen M. Dickey.
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Darko Šeparović: Excerpt from The Pier
Darko Šeparović was born in 1987 in Vela Luka on the island of Korčula. Although he holds a degree in Architecture from the University of Zagreb, today he is mostly involved in writing poetry and prose. He has also published literary reviews and interviews in a number of regional literary magazines. His publications include the collection of poetry Autopilot (2015) and the novels Krvotok (2018) (Bloodstream) and Pristanište (2020) (The Pier). Šeparović’s works have been translated into English, Greek, Slovenian and German.
Read an excerpt from his latest novel, Pristanište (The Pier) below.
Translation by Rachael Daum.
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Maša Kolanović: Unending
Maša Kolanović was born in Zagreb in 1979 and holds a PhD in Croatian Language and Literature from the University of Zagreb. She has published multiple books including the poetry collection Pijavice za usamljene (Leeches for the Lonely, 2001), the novel Sloboština Barbie (Underground Barbie, 2008), the monograph which served as her doctoral thesis, Udarnik! Buntovnik? Potrošač… (Striker! Rebel? Consumer…, 2011), the prose poem Jamerika (2013), and the short story collection Poštovani kukci i druge jezive priče (Dear Pests and Other Chilling Stories, 2019). Kolanović was the 2020 recipient of the European Prize for Literature. She also writes essays on literature and culture and has co-edited several books. Kolanović is an associate professor in the Croatian Studies Department at the University of Zagreb.
Peek into the less sunny side of motherhood that society doesn’t necessarily prepare women for as the protagonist of Kolanović’s short story Unending considers her own journey through pregnancy and motherhood including the required loss of independence at the most essential level: one’s body.
Read the short story Unending below.
Translation by Ena Selimović.
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Ilija Đurović: Excerpt from Sampas
Ilija Đurović was born in 1990 in Podgorica, Montenegro. After finishing high school, he went on to study literature. He has been writing stories since 2005. His first book of prose, They Do It so Beautifully in Those Great Romantic Novels, came out in 2014 with Yellow Turtle Press, a small Montenegrin publishing house he runs. This was followed by Black Fish (2016) and the poetry book Brink (2018), which received an award at a festival in Belgrade. Đurović has been living in Berlin since 2013 and living as a versatile freelance author and publicist. In 2019 he was co-winner of the Montenegrin theater award for the best contemporary drama, Sleepers. His first novel, Sampas, will be published in Belgrade in 2021.
Translation by Will Firth.
This translation was done as part of the "texthelden - Berlin setzt über" project of the association Berliner Literarische Aktion, funded by the German Federal Government's Commissioner for Culture and Media, the German Translators' Fund and the "Neustart Kultur" programme.
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Ilija Đurović: Excerpt from Sampas
Ilija Đurović was born in 1990 in Podgorica, Montenegro. After finishing high school, he went on to study literature. He has been writing stories since 2005. His first book of prose, They Do It so Beautifully in Those Great Romantic Novels, came out in 2014 with Yellow Turtle Press, a small Montenegrin publishing house he runs. This was followed by Black Fish (2016) and the poetry book Brink (2018), which received an award at a festival in Belgrade. Đurović has been living in Berlin since 2013 and living as a versatile freelance author and publicist. In 2019 he was co-winner of the Montenegrin theater award for the best contemporary drama, Sleepers. His first novel, Sampas, will be published in Belgrade in 2021.
Translation by Will Firth.
This translation was done as part of the "texthelden - Berlin setzt über" project of the association Berliner Literarische Aktion, funded by the German Federal Government's Commissioner for Culture and Media, the German Translators' Fund and the "Neustart Kultur" programme.
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Ivana Bodrožić: Excerpt from Klara, Full of Wonder
Ivana Bodrožić was born in 1982 in Vukovar, Croatia. She graduated with a master’s degree in Philosophy and Croatian Language and Literature from the University of Zagreb. Her debut collection of poetry, Prvi korak (2005) (The First Step), received numerous accolades and awards. Bodrožić published her first novel, Hotel Zagorje (The Hotel Tito), in 2010 and the coming-of-age story about a young refugee girl whose father goes missing in the Croatian Homeland War of the 1990s was met with great acclaim in both Croatia and on the international stage and was widely translated into multiple languages and published abroad. Her most recent project is the children’s book, Klara Čudastvara (2019) (Klara, Full of Wonder), which she collaborated on with the prize-winning illustrator, Vendi Vernić.
Take a trip back to childhood and muse on what forces shaped your perception of the world when you read this whimsical tale of a brave little girl, Klara, full of wonder, and her unbelievable summer.
Translation by Vesna Marić.
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Dino Pešut: Excerpt from Bruised Knees
Dino Pešut (1990) hails from Sisak. He holds a degree in Dramaturgy from Zagreb's Academy of Dramatic Arts. Pešut has been active as a playwright since 2013. His plays have received the Croatian Ministry of of Culture’s Marin Držić Award. He is also the recipient of other awards including the German Deutschen Jungentheaterpreis. His debut novel was Poderana koljena (2018) (Bruised Knees) and his latest novel is Tatin sin (2020) (Daddy’s Boy). Pešut lived in Berlin for several years and his plays have been translated into over ten languages.
The passage below is from Dino Pešut's 2018 debut novel, Bruised Knees.
Translation by Tomislav Kuzmanović.
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Bekim Sejranović: Excerpt from his novel From Nowhere To Nowhere
Bekim Sejranović (1972-2020) was born in Brčko, Bosnia and Hercegovina. He attended nautical school in Rijeka, Croatia where he also studied South Slavic Languages and Literature. He moved to Oslo, Norway in 1993 where he continued his studies, earning a master’s degree in South Slavic Languages and Literature. Sejranović is the author of a collection of short stories, Fasung (2002), and five novels: Nigdje, niotkuda (2008)(Nowhere, From Nowhere), Ljepši kraj (2010) (A Better Place), Sandale (2013) (Sandals), Tvoj sin Huckleberry Finn (2015) (Your Son Huckleberry Finn) and Dnevnik jednog nomada (2017) (The Diary of a Nomad). His novel Nigdje, niotkuda (2008) (From Nowhere To Nowhere) won the prestigious Meša Selimović award for the best novel published in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia or Montenegro in 2009. Bejranović was an official court translator and also translated Norwegian literature into Croatian. His own writing was translated into many languages including English, Norwegian, German, Italian and Polish.
The following passage is the first chapter in Sejranovic’s debut and award-winning novel, Nigdje, niotkuda (2008) (From Nowhere to Nowhere). This opening chapter deals with the protagonist’s experience of a traditional Bosnian funeral in his hometown, which raises emotions and questions encompassing religion, politics and identity.
Translation by Will Firth.
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Miro Gavran: Excerpt from Kafka's Friend
Miro Gavran is a prolific Croatian playwright and novelist whose work is celebrated both at home and abroad. His plays and novels have been translated into 40 different languages, and his scripts have been used in over 300 plays worldwide. The eponymous festival Gavranfest, consisting of a week of exclusively Gavran’s plays, is held annually in Croatia, Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic.
Gavran was born in Gornja Trnava in 1961. He holds a degree in Theater from the Academy of Theater, Film and Television in Zagreb. In the early 1980s, he worked as a theater director for then prestigious Zagreb theater, Theater &TD. He has made his living exclusively as a writer and playwright since 1993. Gavran has penned more than forty plays as well as ten novels. He has won twenty awards in Croatia and abroad for his work, including the prestigious Central European Time Prize, which recognizes Central European authors for their entire opus. He is an associate member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts and is a member of the Russian Academy of Literature.
In his novel, Kafka’s friend, Gavran explores and speculates what one of history’s most famous friendships of equals and opposites must have been like: that of contemplative, reserved and brooding Franz Kafka and his more open friend, also a writer, Max Brod, who as the executor of Kafka’s estate, famously published Kafka’s work against his wishes.
Read an excerpt from Gavran’s novel, Kafka’s Friend, in the link below.
Translation by Nina H. Kay-Antoljak.
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Marina Vujčić: Excerpt from The Anatomy Issue
Marina Vujčić, born in 1966 in Trogir, is a writer, columnist and editor. Vujčić holds a degree in Croatian Language and Literature from the University of Zagreb. She’s published Bijeg uz Brijeg (2002), Tuđi život (2010) (Someone Else’s Life), A onda je Božo krenuo ispočetka (2014) (And then Božo Started from the Beginning), Umri ženski (2014), Mogla sam to biti ja (2015) (It Could Have Been Me), Susjed (2015) (Neighbor), Otpusno pismo (2016) (Letter of Discharge), Pitanje anatomije (2017) (The Anatomy Issue). Her novel, Neighbor, won the VBZ and Tisak Media award for Best Unpublished Novel in 2015. She lives and works in Zagreb.
Vujčić’s novel begins with an unusual request: a widower places an ad in the paper looking for someone to scratch his back and his ad is cautiously answered by a woman looking to make some extra money. This is the starting point Vujčić uses to explore the boundaries of human relations in a post-modern urban society where people are increasingly alienated from one another, and many peoples’ lives and relationships are defined by a series of contractual agreements.
Read an excerpt from Vujčić’s novel, The Anatomy Issue, in the link below.
Translation by Mirna Čubranić.
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Andrija Škare: The Games We Play
Andrija Škare was born in 1981 in Zagreb. He holds a degree in Journalism from the University of Zagreb. He has published four books: a non-fiction literary experiment on cafes and café culture in Zagreb, S više mlijeka molim (2008) (With More Milk, Please), two collections of short stories, Život svijeta koji će doći (2014) (The Life of the World to Come) and Društvene igre (2017) (The Games We Play) and the book Slušaj me (2016) (Listen to Me), a kind of meditation on the overlapping points of music and literature. Škare previously worked as a journalist and host for Croatian Television (HRT). His short stories have been published in various literary magazines and he is a founder of the literary movement eventualism. He lives and works in Zagreb.
In his collection of short stories, The Games We Play, Škare skillfully creates authentic characters whose dilemmas hint at the particular set of conflicts inherent in modern day Croatian society. Whether it’s the loss-of-innocence story of a young soccer talent’s difficult choice or an engineer whose matter-of-fact life is becoming messier by the minute, Škare exposes some underpinnings unique to Croatian society from the individual up against the seemingly inescapable web of far-reaching power that politicians wield to subtle class and regional tensions and prejudices, all while remaining firmly anchored in the realism of the present day.
Read an excerpt from his collection of short stories, The Games We Play, in the link below.
Translation by Tomislav Kuzmanović.
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Kristijan Vujčić: Excerpt from The Love Metamorphosis of Božidar Kukec
Kristijan Vujčić was born in Zagreb in 1973. He holds a degree in Philosophy and Religious Studies from the University of Zagreb. Vujčić has published five novels: The Love Metamorphosis of Božidar Kukec (2015), Ponavljanje: zaigranost proljeća i života (2012) (Repeating), Udruženje za mravlje igre (2009) (Society for Ants’ Games), Gospodin Bezimeni (2007) (Mr. Noname), and Welcome to Croatia (2006). His work has been published in numerous literary and cultural magazines as well as newspapers. His short story won the Večernji list Short Story Award in 2017 and he won the Kipklop award in 2006 for best novel and in 2014 for best editor. Vujčić works as a freelance editor and writer.
Part philosophical exercise, part light-hearted pondering of a series of failed relationships, Vujčić’s book offers readers a unique and amusing take on the age-old quest of finding love.
Read an excerpt from Vujčić’s book, The Love Metamorphosis of Božidar Kukec, by clicking on the link below.
Translation by Damir Biličić.
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Slađana Kavarić: Leaving
Slađana Kavarić, born in 1991 in Podgorica, Montenegro, writes short stories and poetry. She has published two collections of poetry: Ljudi niotkuda (2016) (People from Nowhere) and Sjećanje (2010) (Memory).
Kavarić boldly takes on the intricacies of existence with a deep plunge into the psyche of her story’s protagonist in Leaving.
Read Kavarić’s short story, Leaving, below.
Translation by Will Firth.
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Tanja Mravak: Meat
Tanja Mravak, born in Split in 1974, holds a Bachelor’s degree in Education and a Master’s degree in Defectology. She works as a teacher in a Center for Autism in Split, is a regular columnist for the daily Croatian newspaper, Jutarnji List, and has written two collections of short stories to great acclaim. Her debut collection of short stories, Moramo razgovarati (2010) (We Have to Talk) won the prestigious Jutarnji list award for best fictional book of the year. She has most recently published a new collection of short stories Naša Žena (2017) (Our Woman).
Mravak’s stories often reveal the less glamorous side of her native Dalmatian culture, not found in the abundant tourist brochures and blogs devoted to the beauty of the historical towns that dot the Adriatic Sea. She often likes to probe what is beneath the surface of everyday interactions, what is left unspoken. Her short story Meat revolves around an unusual romance which will have you questioning even the most ordinary interactions between men and women and especially the roles women tend to be cast into.
Read Mravak’s short story, Meat, below.
Translation by Antonija Primorac.
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Olja Savičević Ivančević: Excerpt from Singer in the Night
Olja Savičević Ivančević, born in Split in 1974, holds a degree in Croatian Language and Literature from the University of Zadar. She has written multiple volumes of poetry, a collection of short stories Nasmijati psa (2006) (To Make a Dog Laugh) and two novels, Adios, Kauboj (2011) (Adios, Cowboy) and Pjevač u Noći (2016) (Singer in the Night). Her work has been praised by critics and the public alike: she's received multiple awards for her poetry and short stories and her novel Adios, Cowboy received the prestigious tportal award for best novel of the year in 2011. Adios, Cowboy was also adapted into a play which enjoyed an excellent reception.
In her novel, Singer in the Night, the war veteran protagonist's experiences and attitudes towards war are subtly and gracefully touched upon through his present day experiences that trigger flashbacks to significant moments in his time as a soldier. The reader gets a sense of what a master storyteller Olja Savičević Ivančevic is as she skillfully blends the protagonist’s present day feelings with his contemplations on his internal state in the past in a shockingly natural way.
Read an excerpt from Olja Savičević Ivančević’s novel, Singer in the Night, below.
Translation by Celia Hawkesworth.
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Stefan Bošković: Excerpt from Slap
Stefan Bošković was born in 1983 in Podgorica, Montenegro. He's published five collections of short stories: Na samrti (2014) (On One’s Deathbed), My Favorite Things (2014), Transparente životinje (2014) (Transparent Animals), Transkripcija (2015) (Transcription), and Romeo i Glok (2015) (Romeo and Glok). His debut novel, Šamaranje (2014) (Slap) won the award for best unpublished manuscript in Montenegro in 2013. He has published multiple theater scripts and screenplays for TV and feature-length films, documentaries and short films. Bošković is a co-founder of the Alternative Theater of an Active Company (ATAK) and the founder of The Boka Art and Film Festival and the multimedia festival, Besac festa.
The protagonist in Bošković’s novel, Slap, explores his insatiable need for sex, consumption of pornography, the tedium of his job and his ultimatley unfulfilling relationships. He skates the fine line between these challenges and realities of his life, probing questions of love, sex and closeness and searching for the point at which they coalesce, if they ever do. Bošković really challenges taboos with his text: at one point the protagonist, a drama professor, gives his students the homework assignment of imagining Othello as a porn movie. Will Firth’s new English translation gives an English-speaking audience the chance to experience one of Montenegro’s most interesting new voices.
Read an excerpt from Bošković’s novel, Slap, below.
Translation by Will Firth.
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Slavenka Drakulić: Mileva Einstein, Theory of Sadness
Slavenka Drakulić is an accomplished author and columnist whose work is esteemed both in Croatia and abroad. Born in 1949 in Rijeka, she completed her studies in Comparative Literature and Sociology at the University of Zagreb. She has penned numerous novels, essays and short stories (numbering 18 books in total) and is a regular columnist for the high-circulation daily Croatian newspaper, Jutarnji List. The themes she covers in her work range from post-communist societies to war crimes to feminist issues. Her most recent works include: the collection of short stories, Nevidljive žene i druge priče (2018) (Invisible Women and Other Stories), the novel Mileva Einstein, teorija tuge (2017) (Mileva Einstein, Theory of Sadness), and the novel Dora i Minotaur: moj život s Picassom (2014) (Dora and the Minotaur: My Life with Picasso). Drakulić has won multiple awards in Croatia and abroad for her work. She is a contributing editor for The Nation (USA), her essays have appeared in publications such as the New York Times Magazine and she is a contributor to multiple international publications.
In her novel, Mileva Einstein, Theory of Sadness, Drakulić peers at the other side of genius. Taking a feminist perspective of one of the greatest minds of the 20th century, she looks at Albert Einstein throught the prism of his relationship with his first wife, the Serbian physicist, Mileva Marić, who gave up a potentially promising career in science to be his wife and mother to his children. This excerpt peeks into the undercurrent of a relationship, the part that isn't included in the public presentation of their lives, but is of the private sphere. Genius doesn't assume kindness, humanity, or equality.
Read an excerpt from Drakulić’s Mileva Einstein, Theory of Sadness in the link below.
Translation by Christina Pribićević Zorić.
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Vedrana Rudan: Mothers and Daughters
Vedrana Rudan was born in Opatija in 1949. She holds a degree in Education from the University of Rijeka, specializing in the Serbo-Croatian and German languages. She has worked as a teacher, a tour guide a journalist and has been a novelist for the past sixteen years. She has written thirteen books: Uho, grlo, nož (2002) (Ear, Throat, Knife), Ljubav na posljedni pogled (2003) (Love at Last Sight), Ja, nevjernica (I, non-believer) (2005), Crnci u Firenzi (2006) (Black People in Florence), Kad je žena kurva, kad je muškarac peder (2007) (When a Woman is a Whore and a Man is a Fag), Strah od pletenja (2009) (Fear of Knitting), Daboga da te majka rodila (2010) (Mothers and Daughters), Kosturi okruga Medison (2012) (The Skeletons of Madison County), U zemlji Krvi i Idiota (2013) (In the Land of Blood and Idiots), Amaruši (2013), Zašto psujem (2015) (Why I Swear), Muškarac u grlu (2016) (The Man in the Throat), and Život bez krpelja (2018) (Life without Ticks).
In Will Firth’s new English translation of Rudan’s novel, Mothers and Daughters, the reader can peer into the complicated relationship the protagonist has with her mother amidst the unique backdrop of post-socialist Croatia. When the protagonist’s aging mother suffers a stroke and must be moved to a nursing home, which she loudly protested against her whole life, a push and pull between mother and daughter ensues. Firth has captured Rudan’s sharp language and wit for English-speaking audiences and the tragicomic descriptions in the first chapter will leave you wanting more.
Read the first chapter of Rudan’s Mothers and Daughters below.
Translation by Will Firth.
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Josip Mlakić: Like in That Film
Josip Mlakić was born in Bugojnu, Bosnia and Hercegovina in 1964. He completed his degree in engineering at the University of Sarajevo. Mlakić is a prolific and multiple award-winning author who has published ten novels, three collections of short stories and a collection of poetry: Puževa kučica (1997) (The Snail’s Little House), Kad Magle Stanu (2000) (When the Fog Lifts), Odraz u Vodi (2002) (The Reflection in the Water), Obiteljska Slika (2002) (A Family Photograph), Živi i Mrtvi (2002) (The Living and the Dead), Čuvari mostova (2004) (Guardians of Bridges), Oči androida (2004) (An Android’s Eyes), Ponoćno sivo (2004) (Midnight Gray), Psi i klaunovi (2004) (Dogs and Clowns), Tragom zmijske košuljice (2007) (Following the Trail of a Snake’s Skin), Ljudi koji su sadili drveće (2010) (The Man Who Planted Trees), Mrtve ribe plivaju na leđima (2011) (Dead Fish Float on their Backs), Planet Friedman (2012), Božji gnjev (2014) (God’s Rage), Svježe obojeno (2014) (Freshly Painted), Bezdan (2016) (Chasm).
His novel Živi i Mrtvi (2002) (The Living and the Dead) was turned into an award-winning film, which he wrote the screenplay for.
The feelings and impressions evoked by Mlakić’s short story, Like in That Film, will stay with you, just like the image of cranes in the sky. Read it in the link below.
Translation by Celia Hawkesworth.
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Hrvoje Ivančić: The Red Wedding Dress
Hrvoje Ivančić was born in 1983 in Zabok. He completed his degree in history at the University of Zagreb. He’s authored a travelogue, a novel and a collection of short stories: Dunavski blues (2011) (The Danube blues), Samsara: Put na istok (2014)(Samsara: Passage to the East), Za’atar: Priče s bliskog istoka (2016) (Za’atar: Stories from the Middle East). He’s also written a number of articles about his travels to Africa and the Middle East and has appeared on travel television programs.
Asked about his travels to war-torn countries, like Syria, Ivančić responded in an interview, “It’s the fate of the human species that one world is continually crumbling as a new one emerges.” (Ivančić, Hrvoje. Interviewed by Ana Đokić, Moderna vremena, 14.06.2017)
Read Ivančić’s short story, The Red Wedding Dress, from his book Za’atar in the link below.
Translation by Janja Smrekar.
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Mirko Kovač: The City in the Mirror
Mirko Kovač (1938 – 2013) was a renowned novelist, playwright and essayist. Kovač was born in Montenegro, educated at the Academy for Theater, Film and Television (Dramaturgy Department) in Belgrade and established his career in that city, but spent the last few decades of his life in political exile in Croatia. He was a prolific and award-winning writer whose career was marked by persecution and censorship both in Communist Yugoslavia and in Serbia under Milošević. His work enjoyed domestic and international acclaim and he received multiple prestigious awards including the NIN award, the Meša Selimović award, the Vladimir Nazor award and the Kipklop award for lifetime achievement in literature among others.
Some of his most important works are Gubilište (1962) (The Gallows), Moja sestra Elida (1965) (My Sister Elida), Životopis Malvine Trifković (1971) (The Life of Malvina Trifković), Ruganje s dušom (1976) (Mocking with a Passion), Vrata od utrobe (1978) (A Door to the Insides), Uvod u drugi život (1983) (An Introduction to Another Life), Kristalne Rešetke (1995), Grad u zrcalu (2007) (The City in the Mirror), and Vrijeme koje se udaljava (2013) (Time Which Fades). He also wrote a number of screenplays for films, many of which were critically acclaimed, as well as scripts for plays. His work has been translated into more than ten languages.
Read an excerpt from his award-winning book, The City in the Mirror, below.
Translation by Tomislav Kuzmanović.
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Korana Serdarević: Irena Tot's Experiment
Korana Serdarević was born in 1982 in Zadar and holds a degree in Croatian Language and Literature and Comparative Literature from the University of Zagreb. She is a writer and a high school teacher and previously worked as a journalist for the widely read Croatian daily newspaper, Večernji List. Her award-winning short stories have been translated into multiple languages and can be found in her collection of short stories, Nema se što učiniti (2015) (Nothing Can be Done). Her debut novel, Eksperiment Irene Tot (2017) (Irena Tot’s Experiment), was short-listed for the prestigious t-portal prize.
In her novel, Irena Tot’s Experiment, Serdarević takes on questions of free will, freedom and change from the protagonist’s perspective, a woman in her early thirties who one day decides to veer off the well-trodden path she was on, leading towards a brilliant career, marriage, and children. She instead purposefully dives into the unknown. Since she doesn’t do what’s expected of her she consequently endures the strange looks and quiet judgment of others.
We’re all familiar with the steady expansion of women’s rights over the past fifty years, but Serdarević challenges the reader to probe the confines of what today's society still expects of "good girls" and "good women" with this important and engaging novel.
Read an excerpt from Serdarević's novel, Irena Tot's Experiment, in the link below.
Translation by Ellen Elias-Bursać.
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Sven Popović: Loser by a Landslide
Sven Popović, born in Zagreb in 1989, holds a degree in Comparative Literature, English Language and Literature and American Studies from the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Philosophy. He has published a collection of short stories Nebo u kaljuži (2015) (The Sky in a Quagmire) and a novel Uvjerljivo drugi (2018) (Loser by a Landslide). His writing has been included in many literary magazines and anthologies and has been translated into English, German, Polish and Romanian. Aside from fiction he also writes music and literary criticism for various magazines. He is a co-founder of the literary group Tko čita? (Who Reads?), which organizes literary evenings with the goal of giving younger authors the opportunity to read and promote their work.
In Popović’s autobiographical novel, a nameless protagonist takes us through a narrative bursting with the familiar themes of youth like parties, drinking, endless hanging out, painful romances but all with the underlying current of his generation’s particular cross to bear: despite being well-educated, opportunities are hard to come by in a country where brain drain is in full force.
Read an excerpt from Loser by a Landslide in the link below.
Translation by Ivana Ostojčić.
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Amir Alagić: A Hundred Year Childhood
Amir Alagić was born in 1977 in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Hercegovina, but has resided in Pula, Croatia since the war broke out in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. He has written a collection of short stories, Pod istim nebom (2010) (Under the Same Sky), and two novels Osvetinje (2017) (The Revengers) and Štogodišnje Djetinstvo (2016) (A Hundred Year Childhood). He has also written and directed a short film Poigravanja ili pokvareni bojler (2012) (Fooling Around or the Broken Boiler).
In the passage below from his novel, A Hundred Year Childhood, Alagić paints a poignant description of a child's love for an animal and the eventual loss of innocence that ensues. He invites the reader to examine more closely how powerful events and moments of realization in our formative years can shape our emotional landscapes and have long-lasting consequences for years to come.
Read an excerpt from Alagić's novel, A Hundred Year Childhood, below
Translation by Vesna Marić
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Nora Verde: Until the Supplies Run Out
Antonela Marušić who now writes under her pseudonym, Nora Verde, was born in 1974 in Dubrovnik. She completed her degree in Croatian Language and Literature at the University of Zadar. She has published several collections of poetry as well as the semi-autobioraphical novel Posudi mi smajl (2010) (Lend Me a Smile), the novel Do isteka zaliha (2013) (Until the Supplies Run Out), and a collection of short stories O ljubavi, batinama i revoluciji (2016) (On Love, Beatings and Revolution). Marušić previously worked as a journalist and editor in the cultural sector as well as music, television and independent media. She is a contributor and editor for the feminist website Vox Feminae.
Her novel, Until the Supplies Run Out, which centers around a relationship between two female partners that is coming to a slow, painful and perhaps inevitable end in a city and a society that doesn’t accept their love is a stark, honest and thoughtful work.
Read an excerpt from Verde’s novel, Until the Supplies Run Out, below.
Translation by Paula Jurišić.
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Viktorija Božina: Turbofolk
Viktorija Božina was born in 1990 in Zadar, Croatia, where she is currently working on her master’s degree in Croatian Language and Literature. She spent three years in the U.S. studying Information Technology. She has published short stories and she recently finished her first novel, Turbofolk.
Turbofolk is a very popular type of music from the Balkans that has its own subculture. It’s loud, in your face, there are often horns involved somehow and popular themes include cheating and relationship issues, money and living fast. Critics call it trashy and it’s a phenomenon, especially among younger generations: on any given weekend the majority of clubs catering to under 30 year olds, whether in cities or small towns, will not only be playing turbofolk, everyone in the club will be singing along to the lyrics.
Božina’s semi-autobiographical debut novel is part chronicle of her time in America but also a look into the semi-rural Dalmatian environment where she grew up and an exploration of her generation and their experience in time, place, and in the time of turbofolk.
Read an excerpt from Božina’s novel, Turbofolk, below
Translation by: Una Krizmanić Ožegović
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Tomica Bajsić: A Hermit's Freedom
Tomica Bajsić (b. 1968) was born and raised in Zagreb where he also attended the Academy of Fine Arts, part of the University of Zagreb. Bajsić is a poet, a writer, an artist and a translator. He has published five collections of poetry, two travelogues and a children's picture book. His most recent collection of poetry is Nevidljivo more (2017) (Invisible Sea). He is the winner of the reputable poetry prize Goranovo proljeće for his 1998 poetry collection, Južni križ (Southern Cross). He runs the design and publishing organization Druga Priča (Another Story). He is also the president of the Croatian PEN center.
In his short story, The Hermit's Freedom, Bajsić's prose drips with his poetic sensibilities and his rich descriptions paint many vivid scenes for the reader. The protagonist comes into contact with a mysetrious, Polish artist who has made his home in a secluded tropical paradise far from his motherland.
Read Bajsić’s short story, The Hermit's Freedom, in the link below.
Translation by Boris Gregoric.
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Tanja Mravak: While Roland Gaross Was On
Tanja Mravak (b. 1974) hails from Sinj. She garnered critical acclaim with her first book, a collection of short stories entitled Moramo Razgovarati (2010) (We Have to Talk), for which she won the prestigious Jutarnji List award. Her most recent book is another collection of short stories, Naša Žena (2017) (Our Woman). Mravak lives in Split and works at an autism treatment center.
Mravak is interested in the lives of ordinary people, particularly women. Her stories ring with authenticity of character and of environment. In Moramo Razgovarati (2010), she focuses on the traditional, patriarchal southern Croatian environment she knows well. Through the everyday interactions of her characters, she examines the roles we are given, the values of society, and what others expect from us which begs the question: how much of it all is truly us?
Commenting on her characters’ interactions in Moramo Razgovarati, Mravak states: “Encroaching nausea, hopelessness, complicatedness and its all wrapped up in unimportant, sometimes funny conversations. Those people never come into contact with themselves, let alone others. They live given roles, poorly acted.” (Mravak, Tanja. Interviewed by Barbara Matejčić, Moderna vremena, 02.06.2011).
Read her short story, While Roland Gaross Was On, below.
Translation by Tomislav Kuzmanović.
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Rumena Bužarovska: Excerpt from My Husband
Rumena Bužarovska (b. 1981) is a Macedonian author and a literary translator who also teaches American Literature at the State University in Skopje. She has published three collections of short stories. Selected as one of the Ten New Voices of Europe by Literary Live Europe in 2016, she went on to win the 2017 regional Edo Busić prize and is currently the 2018 fellow of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa.
In her collection of short stories entitled My Husband, Bužarovska peers into the intimate sphere of marriage, in fact many marriages, through the eyes of the wives who may have different social standings, different relationships, and different partners, but who all share the fact that their identities are still largely dependent on their husbands.
As Bužarovska remarked in an interview “…it’s true that I’m not interested in happy stories, but rather in the kinds of stories in which you can observe and criticize the ways in which our society is hypocritical and dysfunctional.” (Bužarovska, Rumena. Interviewed by Sandra Sabovljev, novilist.hr, 24.7.2016).
In this particular story, the female protagonist offers a no-holds-barred critique of her doctor husband, their courtship and their current troubled interaction.
Below is an excerpt from the short story Nectar in Bužarovska's collection of short stories, My Husband.
Translation by Paul Filev
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Daša Drndić: Excerpt from Doppelganger
Just recently, in the months before her death, Drndić's work received high praise from the international literary community. The Guardian named her novel, Belladonna, one of the best new European novels translated into English and it was also shortlisted for a new literary award for translated literature, the EBRD prize.
Below is an excerpt from Drndić’s 2002 novel, Doppelganger. In this passage, the protagonist observes rhinos in a zoo, leading him to contemplate unexpected parallels with his own life as he sifts through his memories and unexamined feelings.
Translation by Celia Hawkesworth and Susan Curtis
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Igor Štiks: Excerpt from The Judgment of Richard Richter
Igor Štiks (b. 1977) is an award-winning author who has published three novels, a collection of poems, a play and multiple scholarly articles. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Comparative Literature and Philosophy from the University of Zagreb and a PhD in Political Science from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris. His novels have been translated into fifteen languages. Štiks was honored for his contribution to the field of literature with the prestigious French award, the Chevalier des arts et des lettres.
Štiks’s haunting prose will draw you into the mysterious life of Richard Richter and whisk you along for the journey to find out what sealed his fate. Štiks invites the reader to examine the wreckage the 20th century inflicted on those caught in its most heinous periods through the life of one man.
Read the compelling beginning of Štik’s much lauded and award winning novel, The Judgment of Richard Richter (originally published as Elijah’s Chair) in the link below.
Translation by Tomislav Kuzmanović
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Marinko Koščec: Excerpt from Searching for the Beginning of a Circle
Marinko Koščec holds a PhD in Literature from the University of Zagreb. He's written seven novels, several of which have won prestigious regional awards. He is a professor of French Literature at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zagreb. He worked for several years as an editor for the Zagreb publishing house, SySprint. He has translated several French novels, taught workshops on translating and currently teaches novel writing at CeKaPe (the Center for Creative Writing).
The passage below from Koščec’s book, Searching for the Beginning of a Circle, is a domestic scene, an intimate contemplation on the modern way of life that will make you reexamine your relationship with health food and will probably make you laugh as well. In a more serious vein, it may just make you peer beneath the veneer of modern day trends and obsessions to see what lies beneath. As Koščec put it in an interview, explaining the title of his book: “We began from nothing and we’ll become nothing; life journeys are by necessity circular.” (Koščec, Marinko. Interviewed by Ivana Čulić, tportal.hr, 19.1.2017).
Read an excerpt from Koščec’s novel, Searching for the Beginning of a Circle below.
Translation by Vesna Maric
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Edo Popović: Excerpt from Zagreb, Exit South
Beginning with the publication of his iconic debut novel, Ponočni Boogie (1987) (Midnight Boogie), Popović has published multiple novels, collections of short stories and essays in his three decades long career. He co-founded the esteemed literary magazine, Quorum, as well as the Festival of Alternative Literature (FAK).
In his book, Zagreb, Exit South (2005), Popović breathes new life into the clichéd mid-life crisis. Through the eyes of the protagonist, Baba, a washed-up reporter living in Zagreb and trapped in a dysfunctional coexistence with his wife rather than a marriage, he reflects on a changed system and what it means for the average person.
Read an excerpt from Popović's novel below.
Translation by Julienne Eden Bušić
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Gordan Nuhanović: The First and The Last Punker
Gordan Nuhanović (1968, Vinkovci) was a longtime reporter for multiple, well-respected Croatian journals and newspapers. He has written four collections of short stories and three novels.
Cafés are so prevalent in Croatia that it is genuinely difficult to walk more than a few blocks in any city without seeing at least one. Ask any city resident what their favorite café is and they will have a ready answer. Serving up all kinds of coffee and alcohol, they are considered a hub of social life. So it follows that waiters serve an invaluable function in Croatian society and tend to witness a wide spectrum of humanity on a daily basis.
Nuhanović’s short story, which is equal parts quirky and clever, steps into the shoes of one such waiter whose boss has an unusual fixation on keeping a certain segment of the population out of his café at all costs: the punks.
Read Nuhanović’s The First and Last Punker below.
Translation by Julienne Eden Bušić.
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Sanja Pilić: Ah, Madhouse
Sanja Pilić, born in Split in 1954, is a celebrated author whose work mostly consists of literature for children and young adults. She has won numerous awards for her work including the Matko Lovrak award for the best children’s novel in 2007 for Što mi se to događa (What’s Happening to Me). She has published thirty-three books so far and one of her novels for teens was turned into a play. Her stories and books have been translated into many different languages.
In her short story, Ah Madhouse, Pilić breathes life into her characters using vivid imagery and rich descriptions as she gracefully explores the boundary between sanity and insanity.
Read Pilić’s story, which won the second place prize for best short story in the daily national newspaper’s (Večernji List) competition in 1981, below. Translation by Vera Andrassy.
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Courtney Angela Brkić: Crossing the Rio Grande
Courtney Angela Brkić is an American author of Croatian descent. She has degrees in both archaeology and writing. Her writing is influenced by her family’s history as well as her work in post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina as a forensic archaeologist and at the United Nations International War Crimes Tribunal. Her work includes a collection of short stories, Stillness: and Other Stories (2003), a memoir, The Stone Fields (2004), and a novel, The First Rule of Swimming (2013).
In her short story about a family road trip across the U.S., Crossing the Rio Grande, Brkić deftly explores the contradictions inherent to the immigrant experience, as seen through the eyes of a Bosnian refugee. The protagonist’s vision of a romanticized American West, fuelled in part by a popular German cowboy book series he read as a child, conflicts with the realities he encounters on the problem-filled cross-country road trip he takes with his family in tow. The divide between his childhood fantasies of the freedom the Wild West promises and his experience as a foreigner in rural America further deepens with each additional mile traveled.
Read Brkić’s short story below in the original English.
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Mira Petrović: Anything Could Happen
Mira Petrović was born in 1989 in Split. She holds a degree in English language and literature and Italian literature and language from the University of Split. Her short stories have appeared in various online publications. She lives and works in Split as an English language teacher.
Petrović’s story is not the typical tale of forbidden love and lust. She explores passion and longing from two opposing perspectives. On one side stands youthful worldly openness and on the other the intense frustrations and disappointments that come with unfulfilled desires at a certain age, further compounded by the constraints of small town mores.
Read her short story, Anything Could Happen, below.
Translation by Nikica Mihaljević.
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Jurica Pavičić: Saturday Showdown
Jurica Pavičić is best known as an award-wining journalist, who writes a weekly column for the national, daily newspaper, Jutarnji List. He is also a film critic, a college professor and a novelist. He recently finished his seventh novel, Crvena Voda (2017) (Red Water).
In Saturday Showdown, Pavičić explores the themes of familial obligation and self-determination in a story that is uniquely Croatian, in a place where multi-generational households are still common and opportunity doesn’t come knocking twice.
Read Pavičić’s short story below. Translation by Will Firth.
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Đurđa Otržan: The Four Most Still...
Đurđa Otržan (1953), a native of Bjelovar, holds degrees in comparative literature and musicology from the University of Zagreb. She served as the editor of the classical music show for Croatian Radio’s Third Program for many years and also worked for several years as the editor of the European Union Radio’s night program with classical music (Euroclassic Notturno). She’s written several screenplays, Volunteer (1984), the award-winning Parthian Shot (1990), and Silicon Horizon (1991) as well as three books, Prizor s kopljem (1988) (Scene with a Spear) and Penthesilea (2002) and Šah među zvijezdama (2002) (Chess among Stars). Her writing has been featured in various art shows in the UK and Germany.
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Zoran Pilić: No Harm From Them
Zoran Pilić was born in 1966 in Zagreb. He was chosen by the European-wide literary project, Literary Europe Live, as one of their Ten New Voices of Europe in 2016. He has written two novels and several collections of short stories, one of which was turned into a play (Doggiestyle (2007)). The Croatian Ministry of Culture named his novel, Đavli od papira (2012) (Paper Devils), one of the best novels of 2012. His collection of short stories, Nema slonova u Meksiku (2014) (There Are No Elephants in Mexico) was also recognized by the Ministry of Culture as one of the best books in 2014. Pilić won the European Short Story Festival prize in 2015 with his story Kad su Divovi hodali zemljom (When Giants Walked the Earth). He has also published the novel Krimskrams (2009) and a collection of poetry, Dendermonde (2013). His short stories have been translated into English, German, Macedonian and Spanish.
Read Pilić's short story, No Harm From Them, below. Translation by Tomislav Kuzmanović.
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Dora Šustić: Two Madonnas in a Hair Salon
Born in Rijeka, Croatia, Dora Šustić (1991) obtained her BA in Political Studies, International Relations, at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, in Slovenia. In 2012, she moved to Prague, where she currently studies screenwriting for an MA degree at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU). Her poems, fiction and non-fiction have been published in several international journals (GUTS Magazine, Hourglass Literary Magazine, Bosphorus Review of Books...). She has written and directed several short films and is currently finishing her first feature film screenplay, Virgins of Pomegranates.
Read her short story, Two Madonnas in a Hair Salon, below. The story was written in English.
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Ivan Vidak: Nokturne
Ivan Vidak (1981) hails from Sombor, a town in the historically multi-ethnic region of Vojvodina in Serbia. He earned a degree in Dramaturgy from the Academy of Dramatic Arts at the University of Zagreb. His collection of short stories Ugljik na suncu (2015) (Carbon in the Sun) was short-listed for the regional award, Edo Budiša. Vidak lives and works in Zagreb.
Read his short story, Nocturne, below. Translation by Sandra Juzbašić.
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Boris Greiner: Excerpt from She and He
Where does the self end and the self of our closest loved ones begin? Boris Greiner thoughtfully and philosophically explores the deep, inner workings of intimacy from the perspective of one half of a couple in this excerpt from his novel, Ona i On (2013) (She and He).
Boris Greiner, born in Zagreb in 1959, is a multi-faceted artist whose reach across the art, literature and film scenes in Croatia is extensive. He is the author of seven published books, the director of ten experimental films, and has performed in over twenty solo exhibitions and performances. He was a member of various well-known artist collectives for many years. His published literary works include: Interkonfidental (with Stanislav Habjan) (1999); the novel, Pješakov gambit (2003) (Pawn’s Gambit); the collection of short stories, Život na tavanu (2007) (Life in the Attic); the novel, Tajni agent Gan Flint (2012) (Secret Agent Gan Flint); and the novel Ona i On (2013) (She and He).
Read an excerpt from Greiner’s novel, She and He (2013), below. Translation by Sandra Jubašić.
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Katarina Luketić: Excerpt from The Balkan: From Geography to Fantasy
Katarina Luketić takes on the far-fetched but enduring stereotype still hanging over the Balkans that it is a land of ancient tribal hatreds and inevitable conflict, in her book, The Balkan: From Geography to Fantasy (2013). Her sharp critique of the stigmatized view of the Balkans that still persists in the West is eye-opening.
Luketić, born in Sarajevo in 1969, is an essayist and a journalist. She is the former editor of the well-known, independent cultural publication, Zarez. She co-founded the publishing house, Pelago, where she currently works as an editor. She is the recipient of the ‘Following the Traces of Totalitarian Heritage’ grant and is currently working on a new book entitled, Dealing with the Literary Past (Nationalism in Croatian Literature and Culture of the 1980s and 1990s). Read an excerpt from her first book, The Balkan: From Geography to Fantasy (2013), below. Translation by Una Krizmanić Ožegović.
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Enver Krivac: The Waiting Room
It’s hard to pigeon-hole Enver Krivac, the multidisciplinary artist whose unique artistic vision and expression have garnered him critical acclaim across several disciplines. Born in Rijeka in 1979, Krivac splits his time between writing fiction, composing and producing music for both theater productions as well as for the musical collective he belongs to, Japanski Premijeri (The Japanese Prime Ministers), and drawing comic strips. His collection of short stories, Ništa za pisati kući o (2013) (Nothing to Write Home About), won the national Prozak award, which honors talented young authors. His writing style has been described by critics as playful and imaginative. (Krmpotić, Marinko, “Ništa za pisati kući o: Vedrija i tamnija strana života”, novilist.hr, 28.8.2016). His short story, Čekaonica (The Waiting Room), is a surreal meditation on the experience of the doctor’s waiting room, a world one involuntarily enters and dedicates ample time to when participating in the public health system. The story is part poetry, part keen and often humorous observation, all seen through the eyes of a seasoned artist whose original perspective jolts the reader from the banality of everyday experiences into the realm of the extraordinary.
Read Krivac’s short story, The Waiting Room, below.
Translation by Martin Mayhew.
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Maja Ručević: Excerpt from High-Rise Phantoms
Maja Ručević was born in Zagreb in 1983. She holds a degree in Croatian Language and Literature and French Language and Literature from the University of Zagreb. Her first novel, Je suis Jednoruki (2016), was long-listed for this year’s prestigious t-portal award for best novel of the year, making her the youngest author to make it to the finals. Her award-winning poetry and short stories have been featured in numerous online literary magazines as well as anthologies of Croatian short stories. She currently resides in Sarajevo where she works as a journalist and translator.
Read a selected passage from Ručević's novel, High-Rise Phantoms, below. Translation by Petra Pugar.
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Zoran Ferić: Excerpt from Maya Calendar
In addition to being a high school literature teacher, Zoran Ferić is also one of Croatia’s most accomplished and awarded authors. Ferić’s expansive 600 page novel, Maya Calendar (2011), has been described as his most mature work to date as well as “an exceptional novel which in every sense far transcends what is today considered to be the standard for Croatian prose.” (Pogačnik, Jagna. Jutarnji List, 30.12.2011).
In the amusing selected passage from the novel below, the protagonist spots a woman who he thinks he recognizes from his younger years passing by while he is drinking his morning coffee in a downtown café. Ferić turns this nostalgic scene into a Woody Allen-esque neurotic contemplation on his position in his own life in that moment and how all other characters in his life, whether major or minor, view him as a nuisance.
Excerpt from Maya Calendar by Zoran Ferić.
Translation by Tomislav Kuzmanović.
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Andrea Pisac: Excerpt from Hacked Kiti
Andrea Pisac was born in Kutina in 1975. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Croatian Language and Literature and English Language and Literature from the University of Zagreb. She spent twelve years in the UK, where she earned her master’s degree from the University of London and completed her PhD in Anthropology at Goldsmiths College. Her latest novel, Hakirana Kiti (2013) (Hacked Kiti) was short-listed for the prestigious t-Portal award for the best book of prose in Croatia. She has also written several collections of short stories, Dok nas smrt ne rastavi ili te prije toga ne ubijem (2007) (Till Death Do Us Part If I Don’t Kill You Before Then) and Odsuće (2001), as well as numerous scientific papers. Her award-winning blog, Zagreb Honestly, has been delighting foreign visitors with quirky, insider tips on what to do in Zagreb as well as cultural insights for several years now.
Read an excerpt from Pisac’s novel, Hacked Kiti, below. Translation by the author.
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Damir Karakaš: Excerpt from Remembering Forest
Karakaš’s vivid descriptions will jolt you into the world he grew up in- a remote, conservative community in Croatia’s mountainous region of Lika. He was always different and the simple, traditional values of his small village struggled to contain his vast imagination. When his first grade teacher called him a thoughtful boy, his mother considered it an insult or at the very least, a cause for concern. (Karakaš, Damir. Interviewed by Mirjana Dugandžija, Jutarnji List, 29.1.2017).
Read an excerpt from Karakaš’s semi-autobiographical novel, Remembering Forest below. Translation by Tomislav Kuzmanović.
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Želimir Periš: Excerpt from Mima and Squaring the Debt
"A writer enters into the lives and personalities of his characters, their living situations as well as their emotional ones. That’s the immeasurable richness writing offers." (Periš, Želimir. Interviewed by Melita Vrsaljko, ziher.hr, 23.11.2013).
Read an excerpt from Periš's novel, Mima and Squaring the Debt, below. Translation by Paula Jurišić.
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Tea Tulić: Merman
J.A. Hopkins on Tulić’s writing in her novel, Hair Everywhere: “As the fragments gleam with images and insights, Tulić guarantees her story the vitality of fiction rather than allowing the prose to dwindle into maudlin memoir. Indeed, cumulatively, these short, tender sentences deliver something of a benediction, a gentle laying on of hands, to remind us all we’re human.” https://tinyurl.com/J-A-Hopkins-EuroLitNetwork
Read Tulić's short story, Merman, below. Translation by Mirza Purić.
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Marko Gregur: Booze Mirinda
Marko Gregur (1982) hails from Koprivnica. He has authored a book of poetry, Lirska grafomanija (2011), two collections of short stories Peglica u prosincu (2012), and Divan dan za Drinkopoly (2014) (A Fine Day for Drinkopoloy) and a novel, Kak je zgorel presvetli Trombetassicz (2017). His short stories and poetry have appeared in many Croatian and international literary magazines as well as the anthology of prose by young Croatian writers, Bez vrata, bez kucanja (2012) (No Doors, No Knocking). Gregur has received multiple awards for his writing, including the Ulaznica award as well as the Prozak award for the best prose by anyone in Croatia under the age of 35.
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Ivana Rogar: Newcomers
Ivana Rogar was born in Zagreb in 1978. Her first collection of short stories, Tamno ogledalo (2014) (Dark Mirror) was awarded as one of the best Croatian books of fiction that year by the Croatian Ministry of Culture. Her next collection of short stories, Tumačenje snova (2016) (Interpretation of Dreams), received the prestigious Jankov Polić Kamov award for the best literary work published that year. Rogar earned her bachelor’s degree in Comparative Literature and English from the University of Zagreb. She is an editor for the publishing house Durieux as well as for the reputable literary magazines Quorum and Libra Libera. Rogar’s work has appeared in a number of Croatian and regional magazines including the Croatian Film Chronicles, 15 Days and Zarez among others. She has translated seven books from English to Croatian, including the Man Booker prize winner The Inheritance of Loss, by Kiran Desai. Several poems she translated from Serbian to English were published in The Café Review alongside one of her own poems.
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Korana Serdarević: Birdcage
Korana Serdarević was born in 1982 in Zadar. Several of her prize winning stories are included in her first published book, a collection of short stories, Nema se što učiniti (2015) (Nothing Can Be Done). She received her degree in Croatian Language and Literature and Comparative Literature from The University of Zagreb. She previously worked as a reporter for the culture section of the national daily newspaper, Večernji list, and for the weekly paper, Forum, as well as writing for online publications. Currently she is a high school teacher and also does freelance translating from English into Croatian. She lives in Zagreb with her family.
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Željka Horvat Čeč: Selected Poems
LIT LINK FESTIVAL 2017
Željka Horvat Čeč was born in 1986 in Čakovec. She has published two collections of poems, a collection of short stories and a short novel titled 4 Locks (2016). She holds a master's degree in Croatian Language and Literature and lives in Rijeka.
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Igor Rajki: Carnal Parasite
LIT LINK FESTIVAL 2017
Igor Rajki (1965, Zagreb) is a prolific author with a unique style leaning towards unconventional expression, experimentation, linguistic interplay and a peculiar sense of humor. He has published five novels, six short story collections, youth fiction, radio plays and dramas and his works have been performed on stage as well. Two of his novels, Truth Detector (2012) and Carnal Parasite (2014) were shortlisted for the most prominent Croatian award for novels, the T-Portal Award.
Below is an excerpt from Rajki's novel, Carnal Parasite
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Jelena Zlatar Gamberožić: The Desk
Jelena Zlatar Gamberožić is the author of a collection of short stories, Odjavna karta (A Farewell Card) (2014), and a novel, Slijepa točka (Blind Spot) (2015), as well as numerous scientific articles. She received her PhD. in Sociology from the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in 2012. One of her short stories won the Kritična masa/Critical Mass Prize for Young Authors in 2016. She works at the Institute for Social Research in Zagreb.
The following short story, "The Desk", from Zlatar's collection of short stories, Odjavna Karta, originally appeared in the online literary magazine, Underpass.
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Robert Vrbnjak: The Monument to the Unknown Buyer
"At noon on August 16th, when the sun was shining at its brightest, a man pushed a loaded shopping cart out of the cozy, air-conditioned atmosphere of a Liburnian supermarket. The man was no one special. Balding, between sixty to sixty-five years of age and wearing a Mickey Mouse t-shirt and flip-flops, he headed toward the parking lot, then suddenly stopped and pulled a piece of paper from his pocket (later found to be a receipt)... And then, under that hot Liburnian sun, he got sick."
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Dalibor Šimpraga: Gateway to Dalmatia (Ghosts)
Dalibor Šimpraga’s publishing credits include his novel, Anastasia (2007), a collection of short stories, Kavice Andreja Puplina (2002), and an anthology of new Croatian prose of the 1990s, 22 u hladu (2002). He is a cultural editor for the widely circulated weekly magazine, Globus. He co-founded the literary magazine, Fantom slobode. His debut novel, Anastasia (2007), received the well-respected t-portal prize for best novel of the year.
Born in Zagreb in 1969, he still resides there and graduated from the University of Zagreb with a degree in Croatian and Southern Slavic Literature and Linguistics.
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Roman Simić: Foxes
Roman Simić is a poet, an author and an editor. He has written a book of poetry and three collections of short stories. He is the Artistic Director for the "Festival of the European Short Story", an annual festival held in Croatia since 2002. He is also an editor for the Croatian literary magazine, Relations, which is published in foreign languages. His book, U što se zaljubljujemo (What Are We Falling in Love With) received the prestigious Jutarnji list prize (2005) for the best book of prose. His award winning short stories have been translated into many languages.
Roman Simić was born in Zadar and holds a degree in Comparative Literature and Spanish Language and Literature from the University of Zagreb. He resides in Zagreb and works as an editor.
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Ivan Sršen: Harmattan
Ivan Sršen’s novel Harmattan deftly tracks the plight of Uhunoma, a young Nigerian woman caught in the logic-defying limbo of the German penal system for doing nothing more than trying to live a better life. But as Uhunoma learns as she comes to terms with the circumstances that have delivered her and other women to this facility, the abyss of European Union bureaucracy has little interest in the individuals whom are subjected to its whims, the same as the unforgiving Saharan
winter wind, which the novel is named after, cares not about what it relentlessly covers and smothers with dust year after year. While Uhunoma’s only crime was entering Europe without the proper papers, her incarceration brings her into close contact with myriad criminals from all over Africa and Eastern Europe—drug dealers, murderers, and women forced to make tough decisions just to survive. Harmattan tells a story that is becoming all too universal as borders the world over become more porous and less defined, both literally and figuratively. The implications of this on the human spirit transcend all boundaries.
AUTHOR BIO: Born in 1979. In 2007 he started the Zagreb-based
independent publisher Sandorf and he is also an editor, translator, writer, and literary agent. Prior to Harmattan, published in 2014 by Durieux, Sršen had published a book of short stories (2010) and a popular study on the history of Zagreb’s libraries (2010; co-authored by Daniel Glavan).
He has translated from English Croatian editions of Get in the Van by Henry Rollins and The Real Frank Zappa Book by Frank Zappa. Along with two other translators, he translated selected works of Robert Graves to Croatian, and edited Zagreb Noir for Akashic Books, while still writing novels and short stories.
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Rumena Bužarovska: I don't want to eat
Rumena Bužarovska (Skopje, Macedonia, 1981) is one of 10 New Voices from Europe 2016, selected by Literary Europe Live, and one of the most popular translated authors in Croatia. Bužarovska is the author of three short story collections – Čkrtki (Scribbles, Ili-ili, 2007), Osmica (Wisdom Tooth, Blesok, 2010) and Mojot maž (My Husband, Blesok, 2014; Ili-ili, 2015). She is a literary translator from English into Macedonian and her translations include Lewis Carroll (Through the Looking Glass), J.M. Coetzee (The Life and Times of Michael K), Truman Capote (In Cold Blood) and Richard Gwyn (The Colour of a Dog Running Away). She is Assistant Professor of American Literature at the State University of Skopje in the Republic of Macedonia.
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Neven Vulić: The Crap Master
Neven Vulić was born in Zagreb in 1983. He graduated in French Language and Literature and in General Linguistics at the University of Zagreb.
He regularly writes literary reviews for magazines. His story was included in the „Bez vrata, bez kucanja“ anthology, a selection of short prose written by the youngest generation of Croatian authors. Vulić has worked for the Subversive Festival (Director of the Book Fair, editor-in-chief of all publications, panel organizer and moderator), he currently works as an editor in Naklada OceanMore publishing house. Bibliography: 'Nagni se kroz prozor' (Lean Out of the Window, a collection of stories), Celeber, Zagreb, 2006, 'Povijest bolesti' (History of My Disease, novel), Sysprint, Zagreb, 2010.
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Faruk Šehić: excerpt from 'Quiet Flows The Una'
EU Prize for Literature winner (2013), Faruk Šehić, was born in 1970 in Bihac. Until the war broke out in 1992, Šehić studied Veterinary Medicine in Zagreb. However, the then 22-year-old voluntarily joined the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in which he led a unit of 130 men as a lieutenant. Literary critics regard him as one of the most gifted young writers in the former Yugoslavia, as a shining light of the so-called 'knocked-over generation'. His books have been translated into English, German, Bulgarian, French and Macedonian. His debut novel „Knjiga o Uni“ (Quiet Flows The Una) was awarded the Meša Selimović prize for the best novel published in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Croatia in 2011, and the European Union Prize for Literature 2013. He works for the magazine BH Dani as a columnist and journalist.
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Želimir Periš: Greetings from Dalmatia
LIT LINK FESTIVAL 2017
A story translated by Tomislav Kuzmanović
Želimir Periš was born in 1975 in Zadar, Croatia. He is a member of ZaPis, an association of Zadar based writers, where he organizes literary events and runs creative writing workshops called Otpis. Also, he is one of the organizers of Kalibar Festival of Literature in Zadar. His stories, plays and poems have been published in several literary magazines and included in prose anthologies. He has received multiple awards for his short stories and poetry. His stories have been translated into Italian, Ukrainian and English. His book of short stories, Mučenice, was translated and published in Slovenia, and adapted into a theatre play. In 2015, his novel Mima i kvadratura duga was nominated for the literary prize of „T-portal“- best novel of the year. Books of prose:
Mučenice (Martyrs), Zagreb, 2013., Mima i kvadratura duga (Mima and squaring the debt), Zagreb, 2014., Mima i vaše kćeri (Mima and your daughters), Zagreb, 2015.
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What draws an Englisman's attention to Kamov?
Janko Polić Kamov, a Croatian writer and a poet, died at a very young age, but left behind a major work of Croatian modernist literature: the novel ‘Isušena kaljuža’ (‘The Dried Up Mire’). Literary critics often agree that his work was way ahead of the worldwide movements which were to follow in the years after his death, like surrealism and modernism, with writers such as Joyce, Kafka and Camus later leading the way, and they often label Kamov’s work as ‘revolutionary’. However, Kamov’s novel and much of his work has never been translated into English and an Englishman living in Croatia, Martin Mayhew, is now working on translating Kamov’s important novel.
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Ivo Andrić: Of Words (Fragment from the book „Signs by the Roadside“)
Ivo Andrić (1892 –1975) was a novelist, short story writer, and the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1961).
The collection of notes entitled "Znakovi pored puta"/ "Signs by the roadside", published after Andrić’s death, can be best described as the writer's intellectual diaries. As may be imagined of a man who recoiled so consistently from any exposure of his private life and thoughts, Andrić was equally consistent in his dislike of the diary as a genre, seeing it as a misguided search for permanence.
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August Šenoa: The Goldsmith’s Treasure
Numerous tales and legends exist in Zagreb and about Zagreb; some are remembered through the ages, other sink into oblivion, and even the origin of some is forgotten over time. August Šenoa’s The Goldsmith’s Treasure has successfully endured the test of time. It captivated audiences at the end of the 19th century, and still manages to do so today. Intertwining love and history, The Goldsmith’s Treasure tells the most genuine tale of Zagreb – it leads us into the Upper Town, back to the 16th century, introducing us to its own Romeo and Juliet.
Deciding not to let this tale be forgotten, the publisher, Spiritoso, reached for Croatia’s rich cultural heritage and gave The Goldsmith’s Treasure a new sheen. The novel is now available to visitors who want to get to know Zagreb in a truly unique way and take home an authentic keepsake – a book. The Goldsmith’s Treasure, translated from Croatian by Neven Divjakinja, is available in English for the first time ever.
The book owes its design and layout to Hamper studio, which managed to combine the traditional and contemporary, the decorative and the minimalistic, as well as the rustic and the elegant.
You can read the 1st chapter here.
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Peter Dentchev: I will be the mole over your upper lip
Peter Dentchev is a young and prominent Bulgarian fiction writer and theatre director whose novel “Just like a Man Kisses a Woman He Loves” won the first place at the contest for Best New Bulgarian Novels “Razvitie” in 2007. The next year the same novel won the special prize of “Raiffeizen Bank” at South Spring National contest. In 2008 with his short novel “Simple Story” he wins the second place at Ciela’s Novel Prize Competition. His latest novel, Silent Sun, was published in 2012.
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Stela Jelinčić: A Weed is Just a Plant Growing in the Wrong Place
STELA JELINČIĆ was born in Zagreb in 1977. She worked as an editor in a Croatian pop-art magazine, as well the editor for Konzor Publishing from Zagreb. Korov je samo biljka na krivom mjestu is her first book, which launched her as a young author of a peculiar style. In her writings she describes the subjective reality of a generation brought up in the dawn of post communist transition, followed by war and social double standards.
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Michael Stein: Death in Omsk
"Death in Omsk", the story we are presenting you, is deeply Slavic, with all the paradoxes of the transitional phase in former communist countries. Michael Stein, Philadelphia-born writer and journalist living in the Czech Republic, has written about Russia in the 1990s, mixing the American and Russian points of view. What is a field of "infinite opportunities" for one character is a curse for another. This is a story about dark, illicit contracts, futures lost and found, and pulling your roots up from the ground...
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Edo Popović: Naked City
Edo Popović, born 1957 in Livno (Bosnia), is a Croatian author and journalist, co-Founder of literary magazine Quorum and of the Festival of Alternative Literature (FAK). His debut short-story collection Ponoćni Boogie/Midnight Boogie (1987) became a generation´s cult book. The author then took a long 13-year break from writing. He returned to it around the end of the 1990s. From 1991 till 1995 he worked as a war reporter. In Germany, Edo Popovic´s novels have been published by Voland & Quist. “War is not the key for understanding my prose. There is no universal key. Each book is unique, as any human being, any squirrel, any sip of tea. Literature stirs from life – from places you have lived, jobs you have done, books you have read.”
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Robert Međurečan: from the novel "Slightly used medals for sale"
Robert Međurečan (b. 1969) - veterinary school dropout (will never finish), former soldier (definitely never again), musician and singer (more and more). He says he's a real Balkan homo universalis – he knows all the things he never went to school for. His first novel For Sale: War Medals, First Owner (2008) entered the shortlists for the main national book prizes (Jutarnji list, Tportal, the MH prize, the HPB prize). The novel Silence of the lambs in Zdihovo (2011) was on the long list for the Jutarnji and Tportal awards. His third novel, with the working title Galloping Birds will be published late this year, as a sort of conclusion to the "war trilogy".
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Davor Mandić: Romi
Davor Mandić was born in 1976 in Pula. During studies in Rijeka he started writing poems, short stories and book reviews. After graduating he started working for the national daily newspaper Novi list, based in Rijeka, where he still works as a journalist and commentator, covering Croatian literary and culture scene. He has published: Mostovi (Bridges), a book of poetry (2009), and Valjalo bi me zamisliti sretnim (One Should Imagine Me Happy), a collection of short stories (2014).
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Maša Kolanović: FROM iMurica
Maša Kolanović (Zagreb, 1979) is an author of five books, including three books of fiction.
Her novel Underground Barbie (2008) is translated in German. She works as a lecturer of contemporary Croatian literature at the University of Zagreb. She holds PhD in literary history and cultural studies. Her disertation is published with the title Worker! Rebel? Consumer...: Popular Culture and Croatian Novel from Socialism to Transition (2011). She was a research fellow at the Universtiy of Vienna in 2006 and University of Texas at Austin in 2012.
Her book Jamerika (2013) is an ilustrated book of fiction.
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Ivana Kovačić: Parafairytale (two excerpts from the novel)
lvana Kovačić was born in 1979 in Split. She finished elementary and high school on the island of Hvar, and studied Croatian and Russian languages and literature at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb. She does various occasional jobs, translation, writing and participation in art and activist projects. She lives in Zagreb. Her novel Parafairytale (2013) - which touches on motives of a father’s death and coming out - had a very good critical reception.
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Enver Krivac: Wormrumours and Thumbelinas
LIT LINK FESTIVAL 2017
Enver Krivac (1976.) is a multidisciplinary artist from Rijeka.
Versatile in his expression, inspired by pop-culture and extra-literary sources, Krivac produces short stories, comics and music described by the critics as poetic, imaginative and playfull. His short stories collection „Nothing to write about home“ (2013) won the national literary award Prozak, and was proclaimed by the critics as „an encyclopedia of ideas, but also of many possible approaches to changing those ideas to literature“. He is known for his experimenting with language, aesthetics and humor. His writing style has „a simplicity that both enchants and frightens“. He is also a member of a musical collective Japanese Prime Ministers in which he acts as a co-author and a producer.
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Dalibor Šimpraga: In the tram / The Storm
Dalibor Šimpraga was born in 1969 in Zagreb, where he lives today. He studied Croatian and Southern Slavic Literature and Linguistics in Zagreb. He was a free-lance author, now he is cultural editor of Globus, the main news-magazine in Croatia. He was a co-founder of the literary magazine Fantom slobode. He has published:Anastasia, a novel (2007), and Kavice Andreja Puplina, a collection of short stories (2002). He edited 22 u hladu, an anthology of young Croatian prose (1999). For his debut novel Anastasia, he received the literary prize ”roman@tportal.hr" (one of main prizes in Croatia) in 2008.
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Zoran Žmirić: Beardy (excerpt from the novel "Blockbuster")
Zoran Žmirić (1969) is a writer and musician from Rijeka. His publications include two short story collection, a book of essays and a novel. He was a finalist for 2008 national Best Unpublished Manuscript with the novel Blockbuster (published 2009) and a finalist for the national "roman@tportal.hr” Prize (2010) for the best novel. He has been awarded with "Literary Pen" for the Blockbuster by the Croatian Literary Society (Rijeka), and The City of Rijeka Award (2011) for special achievements in culture. His works are translated into Polish and Italian. He plays bass in three-decades lasting rock group Grč from Rijeka.
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Jasna Žmak: Three stories
Freelance dramaturg, playwright and scriptwriter, assistant researcher at the Department of Dramaturgy at the Academy of Drama Art of the University of Zagreb where she graduated in 2011. She is the co-screenwriter of three short feature films. Her author script was chosen as a part of the Zagrebačke priče 2 (Zagreb Stories 2) omnibus. She coordinates the screen-writing project Hrvatski filmski savez Palunko (Croatian Film Clubs' Association Palunko) and the editor of the screen-writing portal palunko.org. Since 2009 she is the director of the advanced screen-writing workshop in Kino klub Zagreb (Cinema Club Zagreb) and the art editor of Filmske mutacije – festival nevidljivog filma (Film Mutations – Invisible Film Festival). As an attendant she took part in several screen-writing workshops (Sarajevo Talent Campus, Visions of Paris...), and also as a member of the jury in several screen-writing competitions. As a dramaturge she worked together with producers Oliver Frljić and Borut Šeparović. She is a member of the editorial staff of the magazine for performing arts Frakcija (Fraction) and web portal drame.hr. She publishes short stories and critical reviews.
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Ksenija Kušec: Matrix
Ksenija Kušec does not like banks or corporations. Actually, she does not like the rules that are over a man, the rules in whom feelings are excluded, the impartiality of those rules. Well, Ksenija Kušec is anything but impartial, at least in her stories and at least for now.
She wrote Tales from the Solar System that are 100% true, collection of short stories Tell me everything, which are mostly stories about the wicked husbands and how to treat them, and novel Janko and weather-machine.
She writes two novels at the same time and in the meantime does not write.
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Senko Karuza: Is There Life Before Death?
Friends, it seems my troubles are ending. Will this be enough? Is it worth it at all? Let me know, I’d like to know. I’d like to drink myself under the table!
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Petar Šegedin: Holy Devil
Petar Šegedin (1909-1998) was born in Žrnovo, on the island of Korčula. He worked as a professor and diplomat, and later as a professional writer.
From his debut novel, published in 1946, Šegedin's work broke away from socialist realism and (re)introduced existentialism into Croatian literature. He is also noted for his essays and travelogues.
Šegedin served as a president of Matica hrvatska and the Croatian Writers' Association. He was a full member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts since 1963. Šegedin is the 1991 laureate of the Vladimir Nazor Award for Life Achievement in Literature.
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Vjekoslav Kaleb: A Stick for a Stall
Vjekoslav Kaleb (1905-1996) was a Croatian short story writer and novelist. He has published 57 short stories and three novels, most of which deal with existential struggles of people in the remote hamlets of the rural Zagora during wartimes.
In addition to writing screenplays, articles and reviews, Kaleb was also a translator, his most notable work being the translation of Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio. Kaleb’s works have also been translated into Albanian, English, French, German, Italian, Czech, Polish, Russian, Slovene and Macedonian.
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Vladan Desnica: The Visit
Vladan Desnica (1905-1967), born in Zadar, wrote poems, short stories and novels, usually dealing with life in the cities and villages of Northern Dalmatia. His best work is the novel Proljeća Ivana Galeba (Springs of Ivan Galeb), published in 1957, in which he gives a first-person account of an intellectual lying in a hospital bed and meditating about illness and mortality. He lived in Zagreb until his death.
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Janko Polić Kamov: Bitanga
Rebellious by nature, Janko Polić Kamov (1886-1910) was expelled from his Rijeka high school and dropped out of high school in Zagreb. Because of his participation in the demonstration against the Hungarian governor in Croatia, Khuen-Héderváry, he was sentenced to three months in prison in 1903. Headstrong and temperamental, he called himself Kamov, after Ham (or Kam) from the Old Testament, who saw his father Noah naked but unlike his siblings Shem and Japhet did not cover his nakedness, thus issuing a curse. Kamov probably saw himself as a revealer of bourgeoise hypocrisy and wrote to his brother Vladimir in 1910 - "Kamov to me is a literary program..."
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Neven Ušumović: Chikungunya (extract)
Of course he didn’t take him all the way to the Croatian border. He left him near Parecag, at a bus station. This driver didn’t say a word, he drove all to Koper in silence; all right, true, it was Monday, no one felt like talking. He only said srečno, wished him good luck, and motioned him to get out. He crossed the road and after only a few steps found the place where he could wait for another car.
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Sibila Petlevski: Correspondence (excerpt from "A State of Twilight")
Sibila Petlevski is the author of 23 books in different genres of fiction, non-fiction, drama and poetry.
Some of her sonnets originally written in English appeared in Douglas Messerli's anthology of world authors 50: A Celebration of Sun & Moon Classics (Sun & Moon Press, Los Angeles, 1995). Her poetry, drama and extracts from her fiction have been translated into numerous languages.
She won the "Vladimir Nazor" Award for literature for 1993. She also won the literary award for the best national novel published in 2009, tportal award, for her novel "Vrijeme laži".
"Correspondence" is an excerpt from "A State of Twilight", the third novel in the "Taboo" trilogy.
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Slađana Bukovac: Countryside - sample from an untitled novel
Listen to those mathematically identical pauses between the hoof beats, that trackless train engine which one must subordinate to one's own uncoordinated movements.
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Tea Tulić: The Hair is everywhere (Selection)
LIT LINK FESTIVAL 2017
Tea Tulić was born in Rijeka (Croatia) in 1978. Her work was published in various Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian and Slovenian literature and cultural magazines including McSweeney’s from San Francisco. In 2011, she won Prozak, a literary award for the best young author’s manuscript, which resulted in publication of her first book, a fragmentary novel Kosa posvuda (Hair Everywhere). The novel received numerous positive reviews and was included in the top five prose books of the 2011 by Vijesnik daily newspaper, The Croatian Ministry of Culture awarded it as one of the best prose books in 2011. Hair Everywhere is also translated and published in UK, Italy, Macedonia and Serbia. In 2014. in cooperation with the musical collective Japanski Premijeri, she published spoken word album Albumče on Bandcamp.
She is a jury member of international short prose competition Lapis Histrae and a member of RiLit, a non-formal group of writers from Rijeka. Her new novel “Maksimum jata” (Flock’s maksimum) is recently published.
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Vladimir Stojsavljević: Pula
In that rested 1995 in Pula I ran a theatre workshop for young literati, to which many applicants applied, high schoolers and perennial college students, and one employee of the Cement factory, then an infamous ecological timebomb. It looks like the idea to call the workshop "Joyce Was In Pula, Too" contributed to the great interest from talented idlers, jokey young men and women, among whom the most attractive was a certain mysterious Una.
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Boris Dežulović: The Red Devil
BORIS DEŽULOVIĆ was born in 1964, in Split. From 1988, together with Predrag Lucić and Viktor Ivančić, he edited Feral, the satirical supplement of Nedjeljna Dalmacija and Slobodna Dalmacija; in 1993 they established it as the independent weekly Feral Tribune. Since leaving Feral in 1999, Dežulović has been an ongoing columnist for Globus (Zagreb), as well as a regular contributor to a wide range of media in the region. He lives and works in Split.
Dežulović’s publications include the novels Christkind and Jebo sad hiljadu dinara (Who Gives a Fuck About a Thousand Dinars Now) as well as story, column and essay collections. “The Red Devil” comes from a 2007 collection of short stories Poglavnikova bakterija (The Führer’s Bacillus).
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Mima Simić: Boys Don't Cry
Mima Simić, born 1976, graduated from Zagreb Faculty of Philosophy with a degree in Comparative Literature and English Language and Literature, and also holds an MA in Gender Studies from the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest. She is a writer, translator, and a cultural, gender and film theorist. So far she has published a collection of short stories Adventures of Gloria Scott (AGM, Zagreb, 2005) and had numerous short stories published in Croatian and international literary magazines and similar publications. Her stories have been included in several Croatian and international anthologies. She is a member of the editorial team of Sextures, E‐journal for Sexualities, Cultures and Politics, and on the editorial board of Ekviva ‐ the regional women's web portal.
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Drago Glamuzina: Three
Drago Glamuzina was born in Vrgorac in 1967. His publications include Mesari (Butchers, poetry, Naklada MD, Zagreb, 2001), Tri (Three, a novel, Profil, Zagreb, 2008), Je li to sve (Is That All, poetry, VBZ, Zagreb, 2009), and a book of selected poems called Sami u toj šumi accompanied by photographs by Stanko Abadžić (Alone in that Forest, Bibliofil, Zagreb, 2011). The novel Tri (Three) won the T-portal’s Award for the best Croatian novel published in 2008. Besides Croatia, Tri appeared in Serbia (Rende, Belgrade, 2009), Macedonia (Makedonska reč, 2009), and Slovenia (Beletrina, 2013), while its German translation is forthcoming.
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Bekim Sejranovic: Excerpt from his novel A Better Place
Bekim Sejranović (1972-2020) was born in Brčko, Bosnia and Hercegovina. He also lived and studied in Rijeka, Croatia and moved to Oslo, Norway in 1993 where he earned his master’s degree in South Slavic Languages and Literature from the University of Oslo. Sejranović is the author of a collection of short stories and five novels. His novel Nigdje, niotkuda (2008) (Nowhere, From Nowhere) won the prestigious Meša Selimović award in 2009.
Sejranović’s writing often centered around questions of identity and nomadism, perhaps mirroring his own life: a child of divorce, he was raised primarily by his grandparents, grew up in a town splintered by the war, spent his young adulthood in wartime Croatia and finally reached Norway as a refugee in 1993, where he had security and official status, but not necessarily a home.
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Vlado Bulic: Brodosplit
The Brodosplit I know is in my family's photo albums. In the two most important ones - the white one and the black one, which were the first things packed whenever we moved, and finally settled down in Split's Sućider neighborhood, in an apartment Ma and I got from Brodosplit. In the white one are photos of my parents' wedding, and in the black one photos of my father's funeral.
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Vereš
Story by Neven Ušumović
Translated by Celia Hawkesworth
The story "Vereš" is published in the collection "Best European Fiction 2010" (Dalkey Archive Press) edited by Aleksandar Hemon.
prose
How to tie The Shoelaces
Three excerpts from the novel How to tie The Shoelaces by Nikola Petković, originally published in Croatia, entitled Kako svezati cipele (Zagreb: Algoritam, 2011). It is a short novel divided in three parts that deals with a father-son relationship. It relates a story of a complex, unfulfilled and rather traumatic memories of a child whose father left him when he was seven. Having autobiographical elements to it and being particular in a way it does not shy away from addressing the universal topic both known through the literary history and to the territory where it in fact takes place: a patriarchal country where such episodes are kept behind the veil of silence while culturally understood as something that comes with the territory, and, as such, is perceived experienced, understood and endured as something quite natural.
The three excerpts from the novel have a thin red line of a plot-tracing connected with the three wandering motifs as stated in each of their titles.
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The Hoppers
The short story by Nikola Petkovic, published in the Canadian Literary Quarterly Exile, Barry Callaghan, editor-in-Chief
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Our Man in Iraq
Toni, the economics correspondent of a Croatian newspaper, initially thought it would be a brilliant idea to send his Arabic-speaking cousin Boris to Iraq in his place to report on the war. However, when all news from Boris suddenly stops, Toni's career - and his increasingly complicated personal life - is left hanging in the balance as he is forced to fake his cousin's reports...
The bestselling, internationally award-winning novel from Croatian writer Robert Perišić is now available in English translation.
Read an extract from "Our Man in Iraq", published by Istros Books in June 2012, translated from Croatian by Will Firth.
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Symmetries of a Miracle
Short story by Zoran Ferić from the collection An Angel in Offside (Anđeo u ofsajdu)
Translated by Tomislav Kuzmanović
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Barefoot Experience
Short story by Gordan Nuhanović
"I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with his characters, his quirky imagination, and unusual folklore. I also learned a great deal about the blossoming Croatian culture, which is still enjoying the expansion of urban sprawl. Rock music, odd obsessions with pristine, well manicured English lawns, and (don’t ask) gallstones become interesting symbols of normalcy. Although war and paranoia are still present within the stories, the reader is left with the impression that this violent consciousness is slowly evaporating."
The Literary Lollipop on “The Survival League"
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The Man for Cats
Short story by GORDAN NUHANOVIĆ, from 'Survival League' (Ooligan Press of Portland State University)
Translated by Julienne Busic
With edgy, evocative prose, Nuhanović weaves darkly optimistic tales where nothing ever works out quite right: English lawns grow daisies instead of grass, and a romantic weekend in the mountains turns into a near-death experience. Caffeinated punks, male pattern baldness, and Jehovah’s Witnesses are all part of the lives the characters observe or reclaim. Through Nuhanović’s natural storytelling voice, we hear the stories of survivors, not only of war, but of life and its spectrum—from the mundane to the insane.
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The Snake Collector
Jurica Pavičić's story translated by Marija Dukić.
Pavičić recently wrote: "Usually, trajectory of the fiction writer starts with writing short stories, with publishing of the stories in the magazines, an then, later, after the apprentice's maturity, comes Her Majesty- novel. In my case, history goes in an opposite direction. From late 90s, I published five novels, novels in which I tried to merge an elements of the unconventional, intelligent genre writing (thriller, crime novel) with social novel. After a decade as a novelist, I've started writing short stories and fell under the spell of it. After a long search, I've found out what kind of stories I write well: slightly longer, with longer time span, sometimes covering deacades, with more then a few characters in elaborate costellations – and yet, all that in short. Stories I like are like novels (or films) incapsulated in a small bottle."
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Journey to the Heart of the Croatian Dream
Vlado Bulić's novel Journey to the Heart of the Croatian Dream won the Jutarnji list Prize for the best book of fiction in Croatia in 2006.
This is a journey from “the shovel to the Internet” that could easily be read as a “journey” of the society as a whole.
Read a sample translation from the novel translated by Tomislav Kuzmanović.
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Wonderland
Sample translation from "Wonderland", a novel by Marinko Koščec, translated by Tomislav Kuzmanović.
Wonderland is an ironic portrait of Croatian academic community, epitomized by a 40-year-old professor of literature. His professional and family-life traumas, midlife crisis and fantasies of escape from the prison of his individual existence, intertwine with the context of syndromes related to societies in transition.
Wonderland was awarded with the prize «VBZ» for the best novel manuscript in 2003.
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Marinko Koscec: A Handful of Sand
Koščec's novel A Handful of Sand (To malo pijeska na dlanu, 2005), translated by Will Firth, is published by "Istros Books", London, in January 2013.
A Handful of Sand is a love story and an ode to lost opportunity.
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Hotel Zagorje
The protagonist is a young girl who is nine years old when she is sent to the seaside in the summer of 1991 – but the holiday turns into a timely escape, because war breaks out in her hometown of Vukovar while she’s away. And her father has disappeared without a trace...
The voice of the young narrator is deft and engaging as she tells the story of the life that follows in a refugee camp, where she will spend the next six years together with her mother and brother.
Ivana Bodrožić's first novel, Hotel Zagorje, was published in 2010 and received high praise from both critics and audiences. In 2012, it was translated into German and published by the publishing house Hanser Verlag, which has bought the rights to the novel and its international promotion. This year it will also be published in France. As a co-scriptwriter Ivana Simić Bodrožić is currently working on the film adaptation of her novel with the renowned Bosnian director, Jasmila Žbanić.
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To Make The Dog Laugh
Olja Savičević Ivančević
Nasmijati psa, short stories, 132 pp., AGM, Croatia 2006
Nasmijati psa (To Make the Dog Laugh) is a collection of twenty-two short stories of different genres that deal with seemingly ordinary themes such as relationships between men and women, fringe groups, growing up, love, sickness, ageing and death. Savičević tells her stories with a casual precision, with sensitivity and sometimes spite, often with surprising turns or poetic flourishes, but she is always a master of observation. Ultimately there is a lot more to these "ordinary" stories than meets the eye.
"A colourful and bold book by a daring, imaginative author. The boisterous and unbridled style, vibrant with emotion, is topped off by many a beautiful ending. You put her down, glowing, and think: Wow! That's what you call literature."
Deutschlandfunk
"The Croatian writer Olja Savičević enshrouds our senses with her captivating short stories about breast cancer, anorexia and enslavement. She does not deliberately evoke the gravity of these issues, yet they creep into our consciousness. Suddenly we lost in this mesmerising mist and cannot escape. Nor do we want to."
blond
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Adios, Cowboy
Novel "Adios, Cowboy" by Olja Savičević Ivančević follows Dada who returns to her home town, in a suburb, in Mediterranean Dalmatia, where her brother Danijel committed suicide four years ago because of anti-gay bullying...
"… a wild ride through the dusty streets of a coastal city in Dalmatia; clouds of memories are stirred up and verbal hot lead fills the air. The dust settles to reveal a subtle and cleverly crafted family story, which revolves around a pervasive past waiting to be addressed."
Wortlandschaften
Look inside sample translation of the novel translated by Tatjana Jambrišak.
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Damir Karakaš: A Perfect Place for Misery
LIT LINK FESTIVAL 2017
An excerpt from the novel translated by Marino Buble.
The novel is about a young Croatian writer in Paris. Through his everyday struggle emerges a whole new parallel world of the Parisian underground marked by immigrants literally trying to survive. He meets a girl from an Arab neighborhood in Paris, signs up for French classes at the university in order to more successfully charm the French publishing houses as well as get a residence permit... The novel follows in parallel his adventure and his search for a publisher and success which does not achieve the result he was hoping for.
Damir Karakaš was born in 1967 in the village of Plašćica in Lika, the mountainous region of Croatia. He is the author of nine books, which consist of three short story collections and four novels. His books have been translated into German, Czech, Macedonian, Slovenian, Arabic... In 2008, a movie based on his collection of short stories 'Kino Lika' was released. The film was directed by Dalibor Matanić and won numerous awards in Croatia and abroad.
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Rebecca Duran's Take on Modern Day Life in Pazin (Istria)
Croatia is a small, charming country known today as a prime European tourist destination. However, it has a complicated often turbulent history and is seemingly always destined to be at the crossroads of empires, religions and worldviews, with its current identity and culture incorporating elements from its former Communist, Slavic, Austrian-Hungarian, Catholic, Mediterranean, and European traditions.
review
Review of Dubravka Ugrešić's Age of Skin
Dubravka Ugrešić is one of the most internationally recognizable writers from Croatia, but she has a contentious relationship with her home country, having gone into self-exile in the early 90s. Her recently translated collection of essays, The Age of Skin, touches on topics of of exile and displacement, among others. Read a review of Ugrešić’s latest work of non-fiction, expertly translated by Ellen Elias-Bursac, in the link below .
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Vlaho Bukovac Exhibition in Zagreb Will Run Through May
Vlaho Bukovac (1855-1922) is arguably Croatia's most renowned painter. Born in the south in Cavtat, he spent some of his most impressionable teenage years in New York with his uncle and his first career was as a sailor, but he soon gave that up due to injury. He went on to receive an education in the fine arts in Paris and began his artistic career there. He lived at various times in New York, San Francisco, Peru, Paris, Cavtat, Zagreb and Prague. His painting style could be classified as Impressionism which incorporated various techniques such as pointilism.
An exhibition dedicated to the works of Vlaho Bukovac will be running in Klovićevi dvori Gallery in Gornji Grad, Zagreb through May 22nd, 2022.
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Review of Neva Lukić's Endless Endings
Read a review of Neva Lukić's collection of short stories, Endless Endings, recently translated into English, in World Literature Today.
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A Guide to Zagreb's Street Art
Zagreb has its fair share of graffiti, often startling passersby when it pops up on say a crumbling fortress wall in the historical center of the city. Along with some well-known street murals are the legendary street artists themselves. Check out the article below for a definitive guide to Zagreb's best street art.
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Beloved Croatian Children's Show Professor Balthazar Now Available in English on YouTube
The colorful, eclectic and much beloved Croatian children's cartoon Professor Balthazar was created by Zlatko Grgić and produced from the late 1960s through the 1970s. Now newer generations will be able to enjoy the Professor's magic, whether they speak Croatian or English.
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New Book on Croatian Football Legend Robert Prosinečki
Robert Prosinečki's long and fabled football career includes winning third place in the 1998 World Cup as part of the Croatian national team, stints in Real Madrid and FC Barcelona as well as managerial roles for the Croatian national team, Red Star Belgrade, the Azerbaijani national team and the Bosnian Hercegovinian national team.
news
Sandorf Publishing House Launches American Branch
Croatian publishing house Sandorf launched their American branch called Sandorf Passage earlier this year.
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Jonathan Bousfield on the Seedy Side of the Seaside
From strange tales of mysterious murders to suspected criminals hiding out to scams, duels and gambling, Opatija, a favourite seaside escape for Central Europeans at the turn of the last century, routinely filled Austrian headlines and the public's imagination in the early 20th century.
review
Review of new English translation of Grigor Vitez's AntonTon
Hailed as the father of 20th century Croatian children's literature, Grigor Vitez (1911-1966) is well known and loved in his homeland. With a new English translation of one of his classic tales AntonTon (AntunTun in Croatian), children around the world can now experience the author's delightful depiction of the strong-minded and silly AntonTon. The Grigor Vitez Award is an annual prize given to the best Croatian children's book of the year.
news
The Best of New Eastern European Literature
Have an overabundance of free time, thanks to the pandemic and lockdowns? Yearning to travel but unable to do so safely? Discover the rhythm of life and thought in multiple Eastern European countries through exciting new literature translated into English. From war-torn Ukraine to tales from Gulag inmates to the search for identity by Eastern Europeans driven away from their home countries because of the economic or political situations but still drawn back to their cultural hearths, this list offers many new worlds to explore.
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More Zagreb Street Art
Explore TimeOut's gallery of fascinating and at times thought-provoking art in the great open air gallery of the streets of Zagreb.
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Welcome to Zagreb's Hangover Museum
Partied too hard last night? Drop by Zagreb's Hangover Museum to feel more normal. People share their craziest hangover stories and visitors can even try on beer goggles to experience how the world looks like through drunken eyes.
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Jonathan Bousfield on the Future as Imagined in 1960s Socialist Yugoslavia
How will the futuristic world of 2060 look? How far will technology have advanced, and how will those advancements affect how we live our everyday lives? These are the questions the Zagreb-based magazine Globus asked in a series of articles in 1960, when conceptualizing what advancements society would make 40 years in the future, the then far-off year of 2000. The articles used fantastical predictions about the future to highlight the technological advancements already made by the then socialist Yugoslavia. Take a trip with guide, Jonathan Bousfield, back to the future as envisioned by journalists in 1960s Yugoslavia.
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Untranslatable Croatian Phrases
What’s the best way for an open-minded foreigner to get straight to the heart of another culture and get a feel for what makes people tick? Don’t just sample the local food and drink and see the major sights, perk up your ears and listen. There’s nothing that gives away the local flavor of a culture more than the common phrases people use, especially ones that have no direct translation.
Check out a quirky list of untranslatable Croatian phrases from Croatian cultural guide extraordinaire, Andrea Pisac, in the link below:
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Jonathon Bousfield on the Museum of Broken Relationships
Just got out of a serious relationship and don't know what to do with all those keepsakes and mementos of your former loved one? The very popular and probably most unique museum in Zagreb, the Museum of Broken Relationships, dedicated to preserving keepsakes alongside the diverse stories of relationships gone wrong, will gladly take them. Find out how the museum got started and take an in-depth look at some of its quirkiest pieces in the link below.
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Cool Things To Do in Zagreb
Zagreb is Croatia’s relaxed, charming and pedestrian-friendly capital. Check out Time Out’s definitive Zagreb guide for a diverse set of options of what to explore in the city from unusual museums to legendary flea markets and everything in between.
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Jonathan Bousfield on Diocletian's Legacy in Split
Diocletian’s Palace is the main attraction in Split, the heart and soul of the city. Because of the palace, Split’s city center can be described as a living museum and it draws in the thousands of tourists that visit the city annually. But how much do we really know about the palace’s namesake who built it, the last ruler of a receding empire? Jonathan Bousfield contends that history only gives us a partial answer.
interview
The Poetry of Zagreb
Cities have served as sources of inspiration, frustration, and discovery for millennia. The subject of sonnets, stories, plays, the power centers of entire cultures, hotbeds of innovation, and the cause of wars, cities are mainstays of the present and the future with millions more people flocking to them every year.
Let the poet, Zagreb native Tomica Bajsić, take you on a lyrical tour of the city. Walk the streets conjured by his graceful words and take in the gentle beauty of the Zagreb of his childhood memories and present day observation.
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You Haven't Experienced Zagreb if You Haven't Been to the Dolac Market
Dolac, the main city market, is a Zagreb institution. Selling all the fresh ingredients you need to whip up a fabulous dinner, from fruits and vegetables to fish, meat and homemade cheese and sausages, the sellers come from all over Croatia. Positioned right above the main square, the colorful market is a beacon of a simpler way of life and is just as bustling as it was a century ago.
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Croatian Phrases Translated into English
Do you find phrases and sayings give personality and flair to a language? Have you ever pondered how the culture and history of a place shape the common phrases? Check out some common sayings in Croatian with their literal translations and actual meanings below.
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Discover Croatia's Archaeological Secrets
Discover Croatia’s rich archaeological secrets, from the well known ancient Roman city of Salona near Split or the Neanderthal museum in Krapina to the often overlooked Andautonia Archaeological Park, just outside of Zagreb, which boasts the excavated ruins of a Roman town or the oldest continuously inhabited town in Europe, Vinkovci.
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Croatian Sites on UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List
A little know fact is that Croatia, together with Spain, have the most cultural and historical heritage under the protection of UNESCO, and Croatia has the highest number of UNESCO intangible goods of any European country.
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Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb
The National Theater in Zagreb, Croatia’s capital, is one of those things which always finds its way to every visitor’s busy schedule.
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Zagreb's Street Art
So you're visiting Zagreb and are curious about it's underground art scene? Check out this guide to Zagreb's street art and explore all the best graffiti artists' work for yourself on your next walk through the city.
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Zagreb Festivals and Cultural Events
Numerous festivals, shows and exhibitions are held annually in Zagreb. Search our what's on guide to arts & entertainment.
Authors' pages
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