Fabula’s Literary Evening – Ivana Šojat: Unterstadt

Iconic novel Unterstadt is one of those books which completely engross the reader in its story. It is primarily a novel about Osijek, the struggles of a bourgeois Volksdeutsche family, about the twentieth century, socio-political upheavals, changes, justice and injustice, wars, death, fear, love and joy. The fate of a family, city, and country is told through the lives of four generations of women, living in a turbulent historical period that was unfavorable to women. Their lives are marked by injustice, death, fear, as well as love and joy that maintain hope for a better future. The world of Unterstadt, replete with emotions, twists, vitality, nuances, virtues and flaws of both main and side characters, is universal and touches upon virtually every family around the globe.

The novel was translated by Jure Potokar.

Ivana Šojat (1971) was born in Osijek, Croatia, where she studied math and physics at the Academy of Pedagogy for two years. After that, she lived in Belgium for eight years, where she graduated from French language. Her novels have been awarded several times, especially Unterstadt (2009), which has won almost all major Croatian literary awards. Her later prose includes the novels Ničiji sinovi (2012), Jom Kippur (2014) in Ezan (2018), she also writes short prose, poetry and essays and is a renowned translator from French and English.

The novel was published as part of a collaborative project including Fabula, Beletrina, and Slovenian publishing houses. It will be published in collaboration with the Didakta publishing house and will be promoted as part of the accompanying programme for Fabula 2022.