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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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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2021: The Best Croatian Literature in English Translation

Jonathan Bousfield delivers a real gift with his overview of the best Croatian literature that was translated into English in 2021.

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Review of Ivana Bodrožić's Novel: We Trade Our Night For Someone Else's Day

Read a review of Ivana Bodrožić’s bombshell of a novel We Trade Our Night for Someone Else’s Day, translated by Ellen Elias-Bursać.

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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.

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Review of Ivo Andrić's Omer Pasha Latas

Ivo Andrić (1892-1975) was born in the small Bosnian town of Travnik. He earned his PhD in South Slavic Studies and Literature from the Univeristy of Graz. Andrić was a prolific novelist and writer of short stories and poetry and he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961. His most well-known work is Na drini ćuprija (1945) (On the River Drina).

Read a review of Andrić’s last work before his death, Omer Pasha Latus (1975), translated into English by Celia Hawkesworth. The story revolves around a real-life historical figure, the infamous commander and field marshal Omer Pasha Latus, who was sent to Sarajevo in 1850 on a specific mission. Andrić’s works often dealt with historical themes, especially life in Bosnia when it was part of the Ottoman Empire.

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Review of Daša Drndić's Belladonna

One of Croatia's brightest literary stars who sadly passed away last year left a trove of brilliant writing as her legacy. Read a review of Daša Drndić's novel, Belladonna (2012), in the link below.

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Review of Dubravka Ugrešić's novel Fox in Asymptote

Dubravka Ugrešić's novel Fox won last year’s prestigious t-portal award for the best Croatian novel. Read a witty and in-depth review of her award-winning novel from Asymptote by clicking the link below.

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Review of Vedrana Rudan's Love at Last Sight in World Literature Today

Read a review of the English translation of Vedrana Rudan’s heavy-hitting novel which challenges all aspects of the status quo, Love at Last Sight (2017).

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A Review of Ivana Brlić Mažuranić's Croatian Tales of Long Ago

Ivana Brlić Mažuranić (1874 - 1938) is a household name in Croatia and is best known for her beloved children’s tales. She was a talented and pioneering author who gained respect and admiration from her contemporaries at a time when women weren’t afforded respect for much else besides their domestic abilities. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize four times and was the first woman admitted as a member into the prestigious Yugoslavian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Read a review of Brlić Mažuranić’s lauded book of collected Slavic fairy tales, Croatian Tales of Long Ago, in the link below:

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Jonathon Bousfield Reviews the English Translation of Krleža's Journey to Russia

Krleža, a giant of 20th century European literature, is woefully undertranslated into English. Read Jonathon Bousfield’s compelling review of the master Krleza’s part travelogue, part prose account of the time he spent in Russia as a young man in the mid-1920s, Journey to Russia, which is accessible to English readers for the first time.

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From Pioneer Croatian Settlers to the Oldest Family Owned Winery in New Zealand

Historian and author Kaye Dragicevich has been extensively researching the far north of New Zealand, the area where a large number of pioneering families came from Croatia in search of a better life over 100 years ago.
Her new book, titled "Pioneer Dalmatian Settlers of the Far North", took four years to complete and features 200 interesting stories of families who arrived in New Zealand’s gumfield area in the far north from Croatia. It also includes 900 historical photographs.

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Olja Savičević Ivančević: Singer in the Night review

Read a review of the much acclaimed contemporary Croatian writer, Olja Savičević Ivančević’s book, Pjevač u noći (2016) (Singer in the Night).

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Joanna Kavenna: Come to the Edge

LIT LINK FESTIVAL 2017

Joanna Kavenna is a British novelist, essayist and travel writer who grew up in various parts of Britain. Her first book, The Ice Museum (2005), came about as a result of her travels through Scandinavia and Northern Europe and was well received by critics. Her next book, a novel, Inglorious (2007), won the Orange Broadband Award for New Writers. Her subsequent novels are The Birth of Love (2010), Come to the Edge (2012) and A Field Guide to Reality (2016). Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the Guardian, the Times Literary Supplement, and the International Herald Tribune among other publications. She was named by Granta magazine as one of the Best Young British Novelists in 2013.

Kavenna will be reading a passage from her novel, Come to the Edge, and discussing her work as a participant in the 2017 Lit Link Festival which will take place in Pula (June 29th), Rijeka (June 30th), and Zagreb (July 1st).

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How Are You? by Barbara Matejčić, a review

LIT LINK FESTIVAL 2017

"From time to time, a literary work would appear that would succeed in giving a voice to the voiceless ones. How Are You?, an excellent collection of short stories by a Croatian journalist and writer Barbara Matejčić, is one of these literary works.
The author has spent a period of her life with her characters, being with them, helping them and listening to their stories, and her method is hence intrinsically one typical of investigative journalism."
Saša Ilić, eurolitnetwork.com

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Marin Franičević: Dobriša Cesarić and his unique poetry

Dobriša Cesarić (1902 –1980) was a Croatian poet and translator born in Požega. Despite his limited output, Cesarić is considered as one of the greatest Croatian poets of the 20th century.
His first appearance on the literary scene was when he was 14 years old, with a poem "I ja ljubim" (eng. "I too love") which was published in a magazine for the youth called "Pobratim" (eng. "Stepbrother"). His work as a poet consists of ten poem books and a few translations.
He translated from German, Russian, Italian, Bulgarian and Hungarian to Croatian.

The article had been written by Croatian poet Marin Franičević (Vrisnik 1911 - Zagreb 1990), and it was originally published in Most/The Bridge literary review in 1981.

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Paul Gravett on Comics Culture in Yugoslavia: World-Class Innovators & Remarkable Visionaries

Gravett's decided to share his fascination with the guidebook 'The Comics We Loved: Selection Of 20th Century Comics & Creators From The Region Of Former Yugoslavia' by Živojin Tamburić, Zdravko Zupan & Zoran Stefanović.

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Akashic Noir series: Zagreb Noir

Zagreb Noir, edited by Ivan Sršen, is the newest anthology in the bestselling noir series by Akashic Press. It all began in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir, and has expanded to include major cities around the world from Havana to Singapore. Zagreb Noir is a peek into the Croatian capital and is charged with dark humor and vivid atmosphere. With original stories from Croatian writers, this unique anthology not only captures literary Zagreb but many of the city’s more harrowing tales.

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Socialism and Modernity: A Hidden History

Rick Poynor tries to correct the injustice: not so many designers in English-speaking countries know about the growth of graphic design and visual culture in central and eastern Europe after the Second World War.

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Rick Poynor on how he discovered Boris Bućan

How visiting Zagreb, while accompanied by the collegue taking you to unknown places and holding the key to the door, can end up with discovering one of Croatia's most prominent artists.

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Farewell, Cowboy by Olja Savičević review - coming of age in small-town Croatia

THE GUARDIAN, Sat, 9 May 2015
by: Kapka Kassabova

The publication of this dazzling, funny and deadly serious novel will bring nourishment to readers hungry for the best new European fiction... With this novel, which lodges itself in your chest like a friendly bullet, a glorious new European voice has arrived.

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Dubravka Ugrešić's Europe in Sepia

MUSIC & LITERATURE
22 Apr 2014
by Madeleine LaRue

Dubravka Ugrešić is a Croatian writer living in Amsterdam, which, as she remarks, tongue firmly in cheek, “is just the sexiest thing ever.” Ugrešić is always the first to subvert her own glamour. Indeed, she has distinguished herself throughout her thirty-year career by refusing to accept the romance, by staring down nostalgia until it splinters apart like her former homeland.

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Our Man in Iraq by Robert Perisic

World Literature Today, September 2013.
by Michele Levy, North Carolina A&T University

This postmodern, postcommunist picaresque hilariously skewers Croatian, Western, and global culture as it follows the rapid descent of quasi-journalist Toni

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FROM ZAGREB WITH ANOMIE

Steven Wingate
From: American Book Review
Volume 34, Number 4, May/June 2013

Perišić neither sentimentalizes or demonizes the worship of global capital, making his novel that much more tough-minded.

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The First Rule of Swimming

Washington Independent, by Amanda Holmes Duffy, July 3, 2013

The yearning for and promise of refuge are symbolized by a fictional Croatian island in this novel about two devoted sisters, survivors who learn that the first rule of swimming is to stay afloat.

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Staying Afloat - Courtney Angela Brkic’s ‘First Rule of Swimming’

The New York Times, by BROOKE ALLEN, July 12, 2013

The violent history of postwar Croatia, from 1945 until the turn of the millennium, created three generations of dislocated people. Some were dislocated from home and roots: many thousands fled their homeland during the years of Yugoslav Communism, with its informers, “eliminations” and prison camps. Others, who stayed on, were dislocated from their history as the Communist authorities rewrote the past, a process that continued during the bloody Balkan wars of the 1990s. And dislocation, as always, extended into the psychological realm: timeless ideas of value and even truth were warped by decades of lies.

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Co-Winner of April Essay Contest: They Would Never Hurt a Fly (2005)

Piše: Daniel Rusnak
Published Monday, April 15, 2013

In They Would Never Hurt a Fly, Slavenka Drakulic follows the stories of the Hague War criminals from the former Yugoslavia. Drakulic argues that ordinary men transformed into war criminals gradually through intensifying rhetoric containing a perfect storm of prejudice, myth, propaganda history and culture. Becoming a war criminal is a process, she claims, that does not affect only those who are “predisposed” or “inhuman.” Indeed, anyone can become a war criminal under the right circumstances. Even well meaning, civilized people like you and me.

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An extraordinary novel succeeds on all fronts

The Gazette, Laura Farmer, 28 April 2013

Extraordinary novels do more than tell a good story; they cross multiple orbits, discussing family, love, politics, money and art. What’s amazing about Robert Perisic’s “Our Man in Iraq” is that it does all of the above — while also being wickedly funny.

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Mama Leone by Miljenko Jergović

Mama Leone, by Miljenko Jergović (b. 1966), has an interesting structure: the first part of the book, “When I Was Born a Dog Started Barking in the Hall of the Maternity Ward,” is a novella narrated from the first-person perspective, while the second part, ”It Was Then a Childhood Story Ended,” is composed of twelve short stories written by an omniscent narrator.

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Every Day, Every Hour by Nataša Dragnić

Michele Levy, World Literature Today

Readers and foreign presses have embraced Every Day, Every Hour as an enchanting first novel. Alas, however, its fairy-tale romance collapses under the weight of stylistic and structural contrivance.

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After the war

Prospect Magazine / by J A Hopkin / January 24, 2013

Our Man in Iraq, by Robert Perišic

Robert Perišic’s wry novel Our Man in Iraq was a bestseller in his native Croatia, and its US edition has been endorsed recently by Jonathan Franzen. It’s easy to see why. With a nod to the great Ranko Marinkovic’s novel, Cyclops, in which a theatre critic and his boho-intelligentsia friends try to make sense of Zagreb during the second world war, Perišic maps and mocks the rapid changes happening to his city following the end of the Domovinski Rat—the brutal Homelands War of 1991-95 in which Croatia fought for independence from Serbia.

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A Handful of Sand, by Marinko Koscec, translated by Will Firth

ANZ LitLovers LitBlog, Lisa Hill, April 20, 2013

A Handful of Sand by Marinko Koščec and translated from the Croatian by Will Firth, is billed on its blurb as an ‘ode to lost opportunity’ but I think it’s more than that. I think it asks, is it ever possible for psychologically damaged people to love? Or is it that they can only ‘sample’ what others have, only to lose it like sand slipping through their fingers?

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Croatia via Iraq

Brave New Words, Thursday, April 18, 2013

B.J. Epstein

I had never read a Croatian novel, though I’ve been to Croatia, until a few months ago. Here’s my review of that Croatian novel in English translation. The review was published in Wales Arts Review.

Our Man in Iraq
Robert Perisic, translated by Will Firth

review

A handful of sand by Marinko Koščec

Every time a book from Istros books drop through my door, I know for a fact I’m in for a treat so far this is my fourth books from every one as different as the one before but equally as brilliant as the one before so no to the book from Marinko Koščec. He is a lecturer in French literature for the university in Zagreb, he works as an editor for the Sysprint publishing house and also teaches novel-writing. He has so far published five novel his novel someone else won a big prize in Croatia, this book Handful of sand was nominated for the Jutarnji list award .

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Boston Globe: ‘Our Man in Iraq’ by Robert Perisic

By Saul Austerlitz (Published on Apr 11, 2013)

Given the uncountable billions of words they have dedicated to the war in Iraq, it might be easy for Americans to think of it as belonging solely to them. Even its possession by the Iraqis can feel tenuous at times. So it is a refreshing reminder of the new global village to read a novel like Robert Perisic’s “Our Man in Iraq,” which studies the fighting in Baghdad from the distant shores of Croatia.

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Toronto Star on Robert Perisic's novel

By: Emily Donaldson (Published on Fri Apr 12 2013)

"When I say Our Man in Iraq is likely to be the best novel you've ever read by a Croatian writer, I'm not just cynically gambling that you've never read any Croatian novels; or rather, I'm doing it secure in the knowledge that Robert Perisic's first novel (originally published in 2007) is also terrifically witty and original."

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Croatia: from our own correspondent

ANN MORGAN, A year of reading the world

Our Man in Iraq by Robert Perišić, Istros books 2012

'It is a thoroughly enjoyable and thought-provoking story, which, while recalling some of the comic greats that have gone before, add its own brave, quirky and refreshing perspective to the tradition. An unexpected delight.'

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Tim Judah on Our Man in Iraq

TIM JUDAH
Our Man in Iraq by Robert Perišić

In general terms, there are only a few tests of a good book. The first and really big one, however, is whether you want to know what happens next. The second, which obviously does not apply if you are reading science fiction or a historical romance, say, is whether you think, “Yes, exactly!” about descriptions of people and places. I am not Croatian, but I am a journalist and I know lots of the people in this book – not literally, of course, but I recognise their characters. All the way through, not only did want to know what happened next, but I kept thinking, “Yes, exactly!”

Tim Judah is Balkans correspondent of The Economist

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Tainted Minds

MARK THOMPSON
The Times Literary Supplement, 01 June, 2012, Reviews, Fiction
Daša Drndić: TRIESTE
Translated by Ellen Elias-Bursać, 358pp. MacLehose Press

"With Trieste, the Croatian novelist and playwright Daša Drndić has bridged the gap between Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav fiction, between the work of Danilo Kis, say, writing in the Communist era, and that of Nenad Veličković or Vladimir Arsenijević, responding to the genocidal violence unleashed in the 1990s..."

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Trieste, by Daša Drndić

Amanda Hopkinson

The Independent

Friday, 24 February 2012

This extraordinary work of fiction concludes with the narrator, Haya Tedeschi, reflecting on all she has compiled in eight long years of research and remembering. "I have arranged a multitude of lives, a pile of the past, into an inscrutable, incoherent series of occurrences... I have dug up all the graves of imagination and longing... I have rummaged through a stored series of certainties without finding a trace of logic."

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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.

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Review of Dubravka Ugrešić's Age of Skin

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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.

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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.

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Review of new English translation of Grigor Vitez's AntonTon

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.

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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.