Battle songs = Canzone di guerra
Call Number
- FICTION DRND (CEN)
Publication Information
New York, NY : New Directions Paperbook Original, 2023.
Physical Description
149 pages ; 20 cm
Uniform Title
Summary
"In the 1990s, the unnamed narrator of Battle Songs leaves Yugoslavia with her daughter Sara for Toronto to start a new life. They, along with other refugees, encounter a new country but not a new home. Book editors sell hot dogs, mathematicians struggle to get by on social security, violinists hawk cheap goods on the street. Years after arriving in Canada, when she thinks no one can hear her, Sara still sings in the shower: What can we do to make things better, what can we do to make things better, la-la-la-la. In true Drndić style, the novel has no one time or place. It is interspersed with stories from the Yugoslav Wars, from Rijeka to Zagreb to Sarajevo-with, as always, the long shadow of the Second World War looming overhead. Her singular layering of details--from lung damage to silk scarves to the family budget to old romances--offers an almost unbearable closeness to the characters and their moment in history."--
Notes
"Originally published in Croation as Canzone Di Guerra by Partizanska Knjiga, Serbia, in 2019, and in English by Istros Books, London, in 2022."--Title page verso.