Celebration

With the war over, Mijo, who fought on the losing Ustaša side, lies in the forests of Lika in a hiding place dug into the ground. Soldiers keep turning up, looking for him, at the house where his wife Drenka and the children live, while he waits for things to calm down enough to give himself up. Each of the four chapters reaches further into the past: to his youth, when he longed for Drenka as she minded the sheep and the authorities ordered every villager to kill his dog; to the long walk with her and her brother Rudo to a nearby town to celebrate the founding of a state dreamed of for centuries; and to a childhood of hunger, when a father could lead his own father into the woods to have one mouth fewer to feed.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

119 pages in the original

Genres

War, Family, Historical (assigned by AI)

Set in

Croatia, 20th century

First published

2019 by OceanMore

Author's age

52 when first published

ISBN

9789533320861 (original)

9781949641660 (Two Lines Press, United States)