These days in Ireland, Croatia is perhaps best known as a filming location for Game of Thrones and for its ‘party islands’ frequented by lads who model their lifestyle off the characters from Peaky Blinders. Needless to say, this astonishingly narrow view obscures a rich literary tradition (among many, many, many other things), and so in this piece I hope to introduce you to a brief chronological survey of Croatian language literature.

A survey such as this is complicated by numerous factors. Most notably, South Slavic literature can be very difficult to find in English translation. Hugely significant nineteenth century writers such as August Šenoa and Ante Kovačić, as such, do not appear on this list, despite their importance in the Croatian canon. Furthermore, South Slavic literature is very poorly supported by some of the main western European and anglophone literary gatekeepers. The Encyclopedia of the Dead by Danilo Kiš (tr. Michael Henry Heim) is, as far as I can tell, the only work from the former Yugoslavia to appear in the Penguin Modern Classics catalogue. Similarly, Ivo Andrić is the only writer from the region to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. This list is also entirely shaped by my own personal reading. Therefore, it is not a list on Balkan literature as a whole – I’m simply far more familiar with the Croatian canon. The list is also skewed toward more experimental or modernist literature, again aligning with my personal tastes. Nevertheless, I aimed to give a rough overview of the primary developments in Croatian language literature through a number of representative works, and I hope it will illuminate a region whose literature, even in the ever-expanding commercial field of translated fiction, is still sorely overlooked.

 

On the Edge of Reason by Miroslav Krleža (1938)

Translated by Zora Depolo (New Directions: 1995;2021)

Miroslav Krleža was the premier Croatian modernist, and in Communist Yugoslavia ascended to become perhaps the most significant living writer of his day. This 1938 novel, praised in its English translation by the likes of Susan Sontag, is a perfect introduction to a hugely influential writer. Seeming to presage the work of Thomas Bernhard, On the Edge of Reason charts the downfall of the narrator who makes a fatal error at a small-town dinner party. Stemming from a negative comment he makes about a local dignitary, his life begins to crumble around him. Krleža, a committed Marxist, was also a writer unafraid to challenge power and insular oppression, and this is keenly displayed in this novel. Written in an unbridled modernist style that acts as an important corrective to the overbearing Anglo-American dominance of that era, this novel is funny, furious, and fascinating. 

For Trinity students interested in Krleža, his novel The Return of Philip Latinowicz is available in the Ussher Library on the third floor. On the Edge of Reason will be reissued in June 2021 by the great New Directions.

 

Cyclops by Ranko Marinković (1965)

Translated by Ellen Elias-Bursać and Vlada Stojiljkovic (Yale University Press, 2010)

And from Krleža’s modernism to Marinković’s postmodernism. Set immediately prior to the Second World War, Cyclops follows the central antihero, a theatre critic, as a sighting of a priest from his youth sends him down a street-wandering spiral around Zagreb, filled with a shadowy cast of characters, smoky cafés, and riotous drinking. The novel is rigidly anti-Futurist, with the narration routinely borrowing from past writers where it fails to find the adequate words itself. Intertextuality is the name of the game here, as Marinković frequently and nostalgically steals and repurposes literary devices, quotations and conventions from past European literature. It’s a wild ride.

Unfortunately, it’s also rather difficult to find. The only translation available is a hardback edition from Yale University Press. As such, the cost is somewhat prohibitive. Nevertheless, if you have some money to spare and want to treat yourself, Cyclops is an essential read for those interested in Croatian fiction.

 

The Balkan Express: Fragments from the Other Side of the War by Slavenka Drakulić (1994)

Translated by Maja Šoljan (VBZ, 2012)

There is an extensive journalistic literature surrounding the wars following the break-up of Yugoslavia. However, particularly in the anglophone accounts of the war, some extreme biases hold sway. Writers, such as Anthony Lloyd in My War Gone By I Miss It So, tend to revel in the violence of the war, recounting with voyeuristic glee appalling atrocities. In this context, works such as The Balkan Express are vital as they provide a corrective to this dominant trend. This collection of Drakulić’s newspaper columns covering the war, by design, avoids totalising narratives and grand conclusions. It captures, on a chronological basis, the civilian experience of war. Drakulić skilfully portrays the confusion, indecisions, day-by-day changes and contradictions that compose this experience. It is a book that lacks the sadistic joy or vapid incomprehension of most Western journalistic accounts, and in its uncertain form finds great nuance.

For Trinity students, The Balkan Express, along with several other books by Drakulić, is available of the third floor of the Ussher Library. 

 

The Museum of Unconditional Surrender by Dubravka Ugrešić (1997)

Translated by Celia Hawkesworth (Phoenix House:1998)

Ugrešić is probably the most celebrated Croatian writer since the country gained independence (though she has been based in the Netherlands for many decades). A large variety of her novels and essay collections are available in English translation, and I would encourage everyone to read her and to discover her recalcitrant, unique literary voice. The Museum of Unconditional Surrender is perhaps her most famous work (I discovered it, incidentally, when the wonderful writer Joanna Walsh mentioned it in a tweet). Formally, this novel is daring and inventive. Aiming to evoke the condition of political and artistic exile, the novel is extremely formally fragmented, comprising of a jumbled mix of semi-essays, journal entries, stories and more. A photo album from a museum is a recurring motif in the novel, and Ugrešić employs it to skilfully interrogate processes of memory and loss.

A selection of Ugrešić’s books is available in the Ussher Library, including this novel, but unfortunately there don’t seem to be any lending copies. As an author she is worth seeking out, especially for those with a taste for formal experimentation.

 

 Doppelgänger by Daša Drndić (2002)

Translated by S. D. Curtis and Celia Hawkesworth (Istros Books, 2018)

And now, at last, for the late Daša Drndić. She was the author who introduced me to Croatian literature, and in my opinion, she was one of the great European writers of the last two decades. One of her later novels would perhaps be the more obvious choice. Trieste (2012) is undoubtedly her most celebrated work. An angry work of documentary fiction, jettisoning plot, character arcs and all the encumbering dross of realist novels to forcefully address the remembrance of the Holocaust, and concepts of retribution and justice. It’s a bracing read that, in its formal structure, exposes the hideous political vacuity and mercantile objectives that form the basis of books such as The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. Yet, here I want to talk briefly about Doppelgänger, her early, Beckettian work that she called her “horrible little book.” It is a short work that comprises of two novellas. The first recounts the meeting of two elderly, incontinent townspeople, and their ensuing relationship. The second delineates the mental disintegration of a middle aged man. Influenced by the likes of Samuel Beckett, Thomas Bernhard and Elfriede Jelinek, her prose is fractious and declarative. The narrative is brutal and the characters are constructed explicitly at odds with the norms of realist character development. The opening line of the work is bracing – “Oh. He shat himself.” – and from there Drndić relentlessly and playfully drags the reader through the mud. 

As is probably clear, I genuinely adore the novels of Daša Drndić. Indeed, I’m currently completing my final year undergraduate dissertation on her work. Her final novel, EEG, is my favourite. It follows on from Belladonna, both narrated by Andreas Ban, an aging psychologist. Throughout her career, Drndić was keenly attuned to the violence of twentieth century history, and was uncompromising in her exploration of the remembrance of that violence. Treating concepts such as character and plot development, pacing, balance, nuance as politically and morally inadequate, Drndić instead employs frantic, monologue-driven narrative interspersed with historical documentation. Most famously, Trieste abandons the narrative altogether and, over the course of forty pages, lists the name of every Jewish person killed in Italy during the Second World War. Her death was a genuine loss to the literary world.

As I indicated at the start, this list is far from exhaustive. Several major writers, such as Vjenceslav Novak, Slobodan Novak and Irena Vrkljan were left off the list for the necessities of brevity. If you are interested more broadly in South Slavic literature, the independent publisher Istros Books is indispensable, as they publish a wide variety of literature in English translation from the region. Beyond them, English translations of South Slavic literature are unfortunately more difficult to come by. The Bridge over the Drina, by the aforementioned Ivo Andrić, is absolutely essential – it is the Yugoslavian classic. Aside from this, one can only hope that the mainstream neglect of the region will hopefully wane in the coming years, and the Balkan classics of the nineteenth and twentieth century will become more widely available in English. Until then, I hope this list is something of a helpful guide to just one of many literary traditions in a region with a rich artistic heritage.