"This is a strong collection, and I look forward to reading the others in the series. I’d also happily read more." -- Lizzie Siddall This volume brings together six unique female voices: Magdalena Blazevic, Tatjana Gromaca, Vesna Peric, Natali Spasova, Sonja Zivaljevic and Ana Svetel from six countries that were part of Yugoslavia until the early 1990s. Elements of a common history shine through in this smorgasbord of classic short stories, travel writing, diarylike accounts and stand-alon...

Can hope be found in the depths of war?July 1942. Newlywed Bobby Atherton has barely had time to experience married life with her airman husband Charlie before war separates them. Bobby must return to her work as an Air Force plotter while Charlie recovers from a devastating injury in Silverdale, leaving them only the odd snatched moment together.But it isn't only war forcing them apart. Bobby must face the challenge of marriage to a man mentally and physic...

Even in war, the show must go on…March 1940Bradford mill girl Molly Clough can hardly believe it when she successfully auditions for ENSA, the organisation that entertains the troops. Despite the much-mocked ENSA’s reputation as ‘Every Night Something Awful’, singing on stage feels like a dream come true for Molly.But as she tours with her troupe, the Forces Follies, life proves to be far from the glamorous showbusiness world Molly had imagined. She ...

When Miroslav Krleža traveled through Russia for six months between the end of 1924 and the beginning of 1925, the celebrated Croatian writer was there to figure out what it all meant. The sprawling country was still coming to terms with the events of the 1917 revolution and reeling from Lenin's death in January 1924. During this period of profound political and social transition, Krleža opened his senses to train stations, cities, and villages and collected wildly different Russian perspe...

"In From Nowhere to Nowhere Bekim Sejranovic gives us the elegiac beauties echoing over the vanishing times and places, inviting us to reflect and at the same time to relish funky flashes of memory." ––Josip Novakovich, author of April Fool's Day and Man Booker International Prize finalist Bekim Sejranovic's From Nowhere to Nowhere is a subtle yet unforgettable meditation on the factors that shape identity. The novel's unnamed narrator, raised by his grandparents...

For the past couple years Laurel’s been coasting, hiding in the backseat while her life drifts off course. Then one summer afternoon a tall, built bruiser named Flynn strides in and steers her straight into an infatuation she never saw coming.Flynn introduces Laurel to things she’s never imagined—to the violent but exciting realm of the underground boxing circuit, to rough sex and even rougher role-playing, and to an attraction she craves even as it intimidates her. As Flynn invite...

New Year's Eve. The last day of the last year of human existence. A high-ranking minister criss-crosses the city with blood on his hands, a dying necrophile attempts to go clean before God, and a traumatized nurse is pressured into keeping a powerful secret. With undisguised glee, a nameless narrator unravels these twisted tales of moral turmoil, all of which are brought to an abrupt close by a cataclysmic collision of time and space. What will remain on New Year's Day? An exhilarating, pr...

The first of Robert Perisic’s novels to be translated into English, Our Man in Iraq gets to the heart of life made and remade by war and serves as an unforgettable introduction to a vibrant voice from Croatia that's filled with characteristic humor and insight.2003: As Croatia lurches from socialism into globalized capitalism, Toni, a cocky journalist in Zagreb, struggles to balance his fragile career, pushy family, and hotheaded girlfriend. But in a momen...

A collection to whet the appetite of anyone wishing to learn more about a region rich in history, folklore and (her)stories. Telling it like a woman does not mean literature for women only: it provides an insight into h alf of humanity, a window onto the lives of citizens who work, love and develop their inner lives. This collection brings together the voices of a wide selection of prize-winning and established authors:Balkan Bombshells bri...

One man's search for his true identity through an investigation of his parent's past which leads him to discover truths about the former Yugoslav secret services. Through his own unique and now recognizable style, Nikolaidis takes us into a world of criminal intrigue and a dissection of our humble human existence. Powerful, rich in philosophy.

In his novel The Eighth Wonder of the World, Plevnes takes his dark sense of humor and undeniable wit on a search for a common ground in an uncommon world. His protagonist Alexander Simsar, during the last 3.3 seconds of his life in Berlin in 1989 (weeks before the fall of Berlin Wall), envisions the creation of a monument—an eighth wonder of the world—that would embrace humanity in all its layers and countenances. In this absurdist novel, Plevnes invents a utopia that unites many...

In the early 1990s, as Yugoslavia begins to crumble, so too does a woman, known only as Mother. Ostracized by her Croatian neighbors because of her Serbian background, the bright cheer Mother brought to her role as a wife and mother is darkened by the onset of mental illness that devours an entire family. Seen through the acerbic and wry perspective of Mother's eldest daughter, Divine Child paints a picture of the forces that batter an individual into shape in a time of economic crisis and...