Liebesroman

Jury notes:

Ivana Sajko’s Liebesroman tells of a world in agony, of how political systems encroach on lives, put people under pressure, and slowly poison the personal. The main characters are an unsuccessful young artist couple, a child, an apartment, a neighbor and a whole country out of joint. With a few well-aimed strokes, Ivana Sajko draws a thoroughly political tableau and brings the world into the chamber-play narrative space of her novel. What happens in Croatia could happen anywhere. Under the surface, this love story, which is also about falling out of love, is about the power and impotence of the individual in our globalized present. Ivana Sajko’s powerful words create an explosive brightness. Alida Bremer, the important mediator of Croatian literature in German, has found a captivating language for her. – The Jury

Author: Ivana Sajko

Ivana Sajko, born 1975 in Zagreb, Croatia, is an author, playwright and theater director. She studied dramaturgy and philosophy in Zagreb. She has received numerous awards for her plays and prose (including Rio Bar, Trilogie des Ungehorsams, Auf dem Weg zum Wahnsinn und zur Revolution) including the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres. Sajko is a co-founder of the theater group BAD co. and co-editor of the art magazine Frakcija. With her critical and political writing, she is regarded as a reviver of Southeast European theater and Croatian literature. She lives and works in Berlin.

Translator: Alida Bremer

Alida Bremer, born 1959 in Split, Croatia, studied the Romance, Slavic and German languages in Belgrade, Rome, Saarbrücken and Münster and holds a doctorate in Comparative Literature. She is one of the primary mediators of Croatian literature in German. As a translator, she is the German voice of authors such as Edo Popović, Ivana Sajko, Renato Baretić and Marko Pogačar. She has published many books and anthologies of Croatian authors and subject matter. Her novel Olivas Garten appeared in 2017.

Translator’s website: alida-bremer.de