Olja Savicevic

Olja Savičević Ivančević

A gritty, breakneck debut novel by a popular Croatian writer of the country's "lost generation." Dada's life is at a standstill in Zagreb--she's sleeping with a married man, working a dead-end job, and even the parties have started to feel exhausting. So when her sister calls her back home to help with their aging mother, she doesn't hesitate to leave the city behind. But she arrives to find her mother hoarding pills, her sister chain-smoking, her long-dead father's shoes still lined up on the steps, and the cowboy posters of her younger brother Daniel (who threw himself under a train four years ago) still on the walls. Hoping to free her family from the grip of the past, Dada vows to unravel the mystery of Daniel's final days. This American debut by a poet from Croatia's "lost generation" explores a beautiful Mediterranean town's darkest alleys: the bars where secrets can be bought, the rooms where bodies can be sold, the plains and streets and houses where blood is shed. By the end of the long summer, the lies, lust, feuds, and frustration will come to a violent and hallucinatory head.

Adios, Cowboy

Celia Hawkesworth

This novel tells the story of Dada, who returns to her home town on the Adriatic coast, and tries to unravel the mystery of her brother Daniel's death. Daniel, although young, smart, and popular, threw himself under a train in mysterious circumstances. In search for clues, Dada meets an array of eccentric characters and passionately falls in love with the young gigolo Andjelo, who is a part of a film crew shooting a Western on the nearby prairie. Slowly and painfully she discovers all there is to know about her brother's death, and how she has been betrayed by someone close to her.

Farewell, Cowboy

Famous soap opera scriptwriter Naranca is slowly losing her memory and decides to embark on a road trip down memory lane (in a golden convertible) in search of her greatest love and ex-husband, an artist whose uncompromising artistic integrity is opposed to Naranca's fickle life in the world of TV drama. It is a series of letters by Slavuj, written over several weeks and hand-delivered to the inhabitants of the street where they lived, that cracks open the novel. The letters, triggered by a mysterious couple who make love loudly in the middle of the night, keeping the neighborhood awake, touch upon the nature of love, war, lust, capitalism, and childhood, highlighting the paradox of the human condition through playful humor. Singer in the Night is a rich, sensual novel which comments on perception, on how life is really lived--never objectively, never encompassing the whole truth, and yet no less real to us. In its final message, the novel gives a playful warning about the consequences of choosing banality--whether it be nationalism, vanity or fame--over true human connection.

Singer in the Night

Poetry. Translated by Andrea Jurjevi?. This collection by poet, novelist and dramatist Olja Savi?evi?, one of Croatia's most important contemporary voices, is the first of her books of poetry to be translated into English, following the critical acclaim for her novel, Adios Cowboy (Adio kauboju). MAMASAFARI is a woman's expedition into contemporary Mediterranean culture, a collection of prose poems that meditates with vivid imagery and narrative on family, identity and the politics of the Balkans. "Mamasafari," the second section of the book, continues in the vein of observation and political commentary (particularly the problematic history of the poet's native Balkans), yet this time in a more lyrical manner, and this time with the poet's eye lovingly scrutinizing and exploring family life. The speaker braids the experiences of being a mother, a lover, and a child, at times playing the three roles at once. This is a journey into what it means to be a woman. The third section, "Soundtrack for Blind Passengers," contains more poeticized and metaphorically-complex work. These poems are thematically varied, and they solidify a sense that MAMASAFARI represents an expedition, as seen from female experience--first an expedition abroad, then among the speaker's identities, and finally to some truly distant, fictional destinations.

Olja Savicevic

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