The Walnut Mansion (The Margellos World Republic of Letters) - Tapa dura

"The translators have striven heroically to render the author's version of the Serbo-Croatian free indirect style, with its oral tradition, shreds of folklore and communist mythology... Jergovic excels at evoking incipient collective bloodletting... He handles plot and characters with expert equanimity, creating an authentic patterning of voices and a plausible scenario"-Mark Thompson, TLS -- Mark Thompson * TLS * "An inventive novel that tells the story of Yugoslavia through one family's history . . . Highly readable and well-constructed. Jergovic's voice is an exciting discovery."-Publishers Weekly * Publishers Weekly * "This multigenerational saga . . . amounts to a microcosm of the Balkan experience, in which everyday lives are punctured by history."-New Yorker * New Yorker *

An epic novel of twentieth-century Balkan life, from the decline of the Ottoman Empire through the bloodshed of the Bosnian War This grand novel encompasses nearly all of Yugoslavia's tumultuous twentieth century, from the decline of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires through two world wars, the rise and fall of communism, the breakup of the nation, and the terror of the shelling of Dubrovnik. Tackling universal themes on a human scale, master storyteller Miljenko Jergovic traces one Yugoslavian family's tale as history irresistibly casts the fates of five generations. What is it to live a life whose circumstances are driven by history? Jergovic investigates the experiences of a compelling heroine, Regina Delavale, and her many family members and neighbors. Telling Regina's story in reverse chronology, the author proceeds from her final days in 2002 to her birth in 1905, encountering along the way such traumas as atrocities committed by Nazi Ustashe Croats and the death of Tito. Lyrically written and unhesitatingly told, The Walnut Mansion may be read as an allegory of the tragedy of Yugoslavia's tormented twentieth century.