prose

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.

Nenad Stipanić Gods of Neon

Translated by Vesna Marić

1. I had two options: I could become either rich or famous - this was my inheritance from the Age of Enlightenment. And becoming famous has become much simpler than becoming rich. But apart from a strong, but inconsistent, desire to become wealthy, I have not had any of the usual evil or unjust desires, I was not interested in fame, plus I am an introvert, and thus I was destined to never fit in, to be isolated and lonely. But that’s not to say that I had no desires at all, I did have many when I was still alive, I wanted, for example, to become a cyborg, to have a better body and mind than the one I did have, and most importantly, to be a creature who could control their emotions and drives. I wished for a long time to eat someone. The first record of my human life was noted down by my grandfather Vinko, an old partisan who kept a diary of family events and who, whatever might have been happening, noted everything down in a soldierly, informative way, in a removed and sparse manner. For example:

10. XI. 1967. Vinko returns from rehab for alcoholics from the psychiatric hospital Lopača. There is a medium force southwestern wind, it is sunny with some clouds.

The moment of my birth is noted down in the same manner: 26. VIII. 1973. Sunday evening, 9.30, Mirjana gave birth to a boy. Rather strong northern winds with clouds and drizzle.

My first writing however, noted more than a billion years ago, can be found on the final pages of my grandfather’s diary:

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