Archive
Reviews
Readings of books from the region and beyond.
Try a theme — e.g. memory, exile, language. Search by idea, not just by title.
Tako neka bude: Between History and the Present
Robert Međurečan's ambitious novel relocates its story to first-century Judea, following Eleazar, a priest's son turned prophet-hunter, to explore messianism and divine authority in a tradition of anti-gospel reinterpretations alongside Saramago and Kazantzakis. The review credits the sharp, rhythmic prose and thematic reach, but finds the writing too direct and lacking aesthetic distance. It judges the ending, a Judas parallel, oversimplified, leaving the book provocative yet not fully realized.
- Memory & history
- Post-Yugoslav literature
- Contemporary fiction
Cimetna pisma, dijamantna stvorenja: A Love Story in Post-Apocalyptic Times
"Cimetna pisma, dijamantna stvorenja" is Faruk Šehić's ambitious, technically accomplished novel that uses a fragmented, non-linear structure to render a fractured reality through memory and association. The review admires its craft and its personification of war as a predatory character, while reading this as a sign the author cannot free himself from the burden of the past. It faults commonplace observations that undercut the book's philosophical ambition and wishes he would move beyond war narratives.
- Science fiction
- Poetry
- Post-Yugoslav literature
Bejturan i ruža: The Boundaries of Love, Loss, and Identity
"Bejturan i ruža" is Aleksandar Hemon's novel that centers the love between Pinto and Osman rather than exile itself, refusing to become another nostalgic migration story. The review counts it among Hemon's finest, praising a multilingual texture that leaves eight languages untranslated to reflect Pinto's Sephardic Jewish identity and dismantle the illusion of a single tongue. It admires how the book places small, marginal figures fully inside the grip of grand history, with only the epilogue judged superfluous.
- Identity & belonging
- Memory & history
- Post-Yugoslav literature
Knjiga za Maju: Only Love Makes Sense
Marko Tomaš's novel "Knjiga za Maju" deliberately fragments its narrative, turning discontinuity and "jumps" into both device and metaphor for the nomadic nature of lived experience. Though Maja never appears as a character, she serves as the book's only constant, the axis around which meaning gathers. The review reads the work as fully lyrical and literarily inspired, arriving at the message that only love gives things meaning.
- Contemporary fiction
- Poetry
- Post-Yugoslav literature