44
Yugoslavia, My Fatherland (excerpt)
Goran Vojnović
Goran Vojnović (b. 1980)
graduated
from
the
Academy of Theatre, Radio,
Film and Television in
Ljubljana. His film “Good
Luck Nedim” (co-written
with Marko Šantić) was nominated for the European Film
Academy’s Best Short Film Award in 2006. Vojnović’s
controversial, confrontational debut bestseller,
Southern
Scum go home!
(2008) garnered major literary awards in
Slovenia, has been reprinted five times and translated
widely.
Yugoslavia, My Fatherland
is just out in English language
from Istros Books. Vojnović describes it, in comments
published in
Literary Review
, as “a child’s-eye view of the
collapse of Yugoslavia” from a generation still “living the
consequences, trying to challenge our roles and that of our
parents.” This novel has also been turned into a successful
play by the National Drama Theatre in Ljubljana.
Here we present three sections from this work, translated
from Slovenian by Noah Charney.