Fabula: Kristian Novak

Gypsy, Yet So Beautiful is a masterful literary achievement that creates fully developed characters and with them, a reality from marginalized individuals, usually sentenced to side roles or typification. The young Roma Sandi falls in love with Milena, a divorced 40-year old who has just lost her job unjustly. Nuzat, a Kurd from Mosul is running away from danger and is searching for a (better) life. Plančić, a PR manager working at the Zagreb police department, tries to hide a scandal. All these characters surround a dead body that connects their lives. In this sense, novel can also be read as a crime fiction. However, deep inside, the reader can find a social drama of the present time which exceeds the boundaries of fiction.

Kristian Novak (1979) is one of the most prominent Croatian writers. His novel Dark Mother Earth was received well and with much excitement among readers in the whole region, also in Slovenia. Following Dark Mother Earth is the novel Gypsy, Yet So Beautiful. It has also received the most prestigious literary awards and was named Novel of the Year, outshining Dark Mother Earth according to the general public’s opinion. With it, Novak became the canon of contemporary Croatian literature. It was staged in The Croatian National Theatre HNK in Zagreb, directed by Ivica Buljan.