Yugoslavia, My Fatherland

'Vojnovic is influenced by American movies, and Yugoslavia, My Fatherland uses cinema's generic conventions to address the theme of war crimes head-on . . . A gripping narrative that requires no allegorical decipherment, its author employs a noir style to capture the seaminess and stupor of Yugoslavia and traces these early symptoms to the country's disintegration. In this milieu, national or ethnic identity is a giant Rubik's cube made of razors.' Mark Thompson, Times Literary Supplement At last comes a work which will become required reading both within and beyond the Balkans. It is profound and important and, quietly published in translation from a small publisher, it is far more convincing then many more imagined and over-hyped works which simply lack the essential truths which only an insider can bring to a narrative. Eileen Battersby, The Irish Times

GORAN VOJNOVIC (b. 1980) graduated from the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television in Ljubljana, where he specialised in film and television directing and screenwriting. The film Good Luck Nedim for which he co-wrote the script with Marko antic won the Heart of Sarajevo Award and was nominated for the European Film Academy's Best Short Film Award in 2006. He has directed three short films himself and his first feature film Piran/Pirano premiered in 2010. Vojnovic's bestselling debut novel, 'Southern Scum go home!' (2008) reaped all the major literary awards in Slovenia, has been reprinted five times and translated into numerous foreign languages. A collection of his columns from a Slovene daily newspaper and weekly magazine have also been published as a book under the title 'When Jimmy Choo meets Fidel Castro' (2010).