“The army wanted my brother to report the next day at nine o’clock. The draft card covered up the ladies with their long skirts at the evening cabaret. France cabarets its nights away. I was born here, where a different program is in store. A mix of fear and bitterness suddenly overwhelmed me and wouldn’t let me climb the stairs.”
From Croatian War Nocturnal by Spomenka Štimec, translated from the Esperanto by Sebastian Schulman.
As part of LitHub’s excellent series of “10 Books by Women We’d Like to See Translated: Balkan Edition“, translator Will Firth included Štimec for her Croatian novel about the painter Swiss Ferdinand Hodler and his model Jeanne Charles Cerani, Hodler en Mostar (Hodler in Mostar), noting as well her earlier novel about the actress Tilla Durieux.
Croatian War Nocturnal is just out from Phoneme Media. I will have an interview with Spomenka Štimec in Literalab coming soon.
Read more Saturday European Fiction.
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