Author(s): Daša Drndić ( Dasa Drndic )

Novel | Translated fiction | Eastern Europe

Tea Radan, the narrator of the novel Canzone di Guerra, reflects on her own past and in doing so, composes a forgotten mosaic of historical events that she wants to first tear apart and then reassemble with all the missing fragments. In front of the reader's eyes, a collage of different genres takes place - from (pseudo) autobiography to documentary material and culinary recipes. With them, the author Dasa Drndic skilfully explores different perspectives on the issues of emigration and the unresolved history of the Second World War, while emphasising the absurdity of the politics of differences between neighbouring nations. The narrator subtly weaves the torturous story of searching for her own identity with a relaxed, sometimes disguised ironic style, which takes the reader surprisingly easily into the world of persecution and the sense of alienation between herself and others.

Author Biography: DASA DRNDIC (1946 - 2018) was a distinguished Croatian novelist, playwright and literary critic, author of radio plays and documentaries. She was born in Zagreb, and studied English language and literature at the University of Belgrade. She then obtained a Master's degree in Theatre and Communications from Southern Illinois University in the United States, which she attended with the aid of a Fulbright scholarship. Drndic worked as an editor, a professor of English, and as a TV programme editor in Belgrade. She obtained her doctorate at the University of Rijeka in Croatia, where she later taught. She is the author of thirteen novels including Leica Format (2003), Sonnenschein (2007), Trieste (2011) and Belladonna (2012). Her works have been translated into many languages, and Drndic has won the International Literary Award "Prozart" in 2014, awarded to a prominent author for their contribution towards the development of the literature on the Balkans. Her work has also been shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the inaugral EBRD Literature Prize.