Lit in Translation

Water, Spiderweb

Voda, paučina

Nada Gašić (born 1950)

Translated by Ellen Elias-Bursać

English editions

In English

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The novel opens on 27 October 1964, the day the Sava flooded Zagreb and changed the city and its people for good. From there the water runs through several generations of an odd cast living on the margins, among them a mentally ill man through whom the Virgin Mary speaks and three sisters out of a warped Cinderella. In the harsh present of the Trešnjevka district, a crime story and a family tragedy unfold side by side, among death, prostitution, police and mafia. The investigation matters less than the reasons behind the crimes, personal and social, in a city where the post-independence euphoria has given way to poverty, shifting morals and loneliness.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form
Novel
Length
403 pages in the original
Genres
Crime, Family (assigned by AI)
Set in
Croatia, 1964 to the 2000s
First published
2010 by Algoritam
Author's age
60 when first published
ISBN

9789533160412 (original)

9789533515199 (Sandorf Passage, United States)