Sjećanje šume

In a small village in Lika, ringed by forest, a boy tells of his childhood in some thirty short chapters, each built around one event: a family lunch, a death, the slaughter of a pig, the harvest, school and games with his friends. Because of a weak heart, a subject his mother always steers away from, he is no use for the hard physical work that is the only kind this harsh world respects, and his strict, quarrelsome father wanted a very different son, and the women of the house, his mother and grandmother, are powerless against him. He reads comics and walks to the next village to see films. Among villagers, a teacher and officials, in the 1970s and early 1980s, he takes refuge in his imagination and pictures a life far from this backwater of cows, superstition and spells.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

132 pages in the original

Genres

Coming of age, Family (assigned by AI)

Set in

Croatia, 1970s–1980s

First published

2016 by Sandorf

Author's age

49 when first published

ISBN

9789533510071 (original)