Croatia/Bosnia 🇭🇷 🇧🇦
Miljenko Jergović (1966) is a Bosnian and Croatian writer and journalist. He is one of the most significant Balkan writers of his generation. Born in Sarajevo in 1966, he is one of the most colorful figures of the Balkans public scene.
His stories and novels have been translated into 30 languages.
Jergović has received numerous literary awards, both domestic and foreign. His landmark collection of stories “Sarajevo Marlboro” received the Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize, and his poetry collection “Warsaw Observatory” received the Goran Prize for young poets and the Mak Dizdar Award. “Mama Leone” won the highly regarded Premio Grinzane Cavour for the best foreign book in Italy in 2003. And in 2012, he received the Angelus Central European Literature Award for his book “Srda Sings At Dusk On Pentecost” and in 2018 he won the Georg Dehio Book Prize.
Jergović currently lives and works in Zagreb, Croatia.
Volga, Volga
Translation:Gjoko Zdraveski
Every Friday, Dželal Pljevljak travels 116 kilometers with his black Volga, from Split to Livno. He goes to the mosque and returns back. And so it goes for about 15 years. And just when he thinks he knows every tree and every house along the road, something happens that will change his life forever. He gets caught in a typical Bosnian snowstorm, and the path leads him to the village of Fatumi.
Five years later, in 1993, during the harshest part of the war in Bosnia, an unnamed documentarist tries to reconstruct the story that had obsessively captivated the public not so long ago. The story of the man who became the last and greatest star in the history of the black chronicles of these part of Europe.
Jergović once again plays with documents, perspectives, and points of view. It's unclear who speaks the truth, what the truth is, who is right, and whether there are culprits at all.
Vjetrogonja Babukić i njegovo doba: pikarski roman. (Babukić the Vagabond and His Time)
Translation:Gjoko Zdraveski
The main character of the film "The Terminal" was trapped at an airport for nine months, while the hero of Miljenko Jergović's novel travels by plane around the world for a whole thirty years.
His name is Babukić, and he sets out into the world at the beginning of our last Balkan war. He escapes from Zagreb, from his job in the Yugoslav National Army, and from his difficult mistress, traveling through Ljubljana and far, far away. Already on his first flight to Frankfurt, he acquires the strange gift of learning any language instantly as soon as he hears it, and everyone—from customs officers and stewardesses to ordinary passengers—believes him immensely.
Circling the world countless times, never leaving the airport or plane, he carefully listens to the incredible stories of people from all races and religions— from the Dagestani witch to the Swedish anthropologist, to Dinko Mikučićić, the son of the most famous assassin of the UDBA, with whom he will meet the end of the world at the Belgrade airport.
"The Windmill Babukić and His Time" is a contemporary picaresque novel that portrays our fears, anxieties, obsession with sex, worrying, and alcohol.
Other translations in Macedonian language:
"Drums of the night" (translated from the Croatian: Gjoko Zdraveski), Begemot, Skopje, 2022.
"Dogs of the lake" (translated from the Croatian: Dejan Trajkoski), Prozart Media, Skopje, 2021.
"Inshallah, Madona, Inshallah" (translated from the Croatian: Gjoko Zdraveski), Begemot, Skopje, 2021.
"cat, human, dog" (translated from the Croatian: Dejan Trajkoski), Prozart Media, Skopje, 2020.
"Sarajevo Marlboro" (translated from the Croatian: Gjoko Zdraveski), Begemot, Skopje, 2019.
"Bujik Rivera" (translated from the Croatian: Gjoko Zdraveski), Begemot, Skopje, 2018.
"Rod" (translated from the Croatian: Vladimir Jankovski), Ili-ili, Skopje, 2017.
"Ruta Tanenbaum" (translated from the Croatian: Gjoko Zdraveski), Begemot, Skopje, 2017.
"Weather change" (translated from the Croatian: Risto Lazarov), Vezilka, Skopje, 2013.
"Father" (translated from the Croatian: Jasmina Aleksova), Ikona, Skopje, 2012.
"Mama Leone" (translated from the Croatian: Aleksandar Prokopiev), Ikona, Skopje, 2011.
"Sarajevo Marlboro" (translated from the Croatian: Biljana Žerevska), List, Skopje, 1999