Damir Karakas is an award-winning Croatian author, playwright, musician and journalist. He is the 2021 winner of the prestigious Mesa Selimovic award. Born in 1967 in the remote, mountainous region of Lika, he later studied law and agronomy in Zagreb. During the 1990s he worked as a war reporter from the front lines in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo for national daily newspaper Vecernji list. Blue Moon is his second book to be translated into English.Ellen Elias-Bursac is an award-winning translator of Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian, who has served as the president of the American Literary Translators' Association. Between 1972 and 1990 she lived in Zagreb and for six years she worked in the English Translation Unit of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands. She is the translator of celebrated authors including Dubravka Ugresic and Dasa Drndic, author of Trieste, and of Karakas' first book to appear in English, Celebration.

"What may seem at first glance to be a simple, straightforward love story actually moves at many levels. The author dissects society on the eve of war and transition with a tale that at times surprises with an unexpected gut punch."-Sven Popovic, Moderna vremena "As is so often the case with fine books, there is dancing, singing and drinking as the Titanic goes down and while funeral bells are clanging-for whom? For everyone who sees themself in this, in other words for everyone who can hear the bells toll."-Teofil Pantic, Vreme "Were things better then, under Tito? Did Yugoslavia have a chance? How much did we lose? And what did we gain by murdering each other and radicalising our already irrational hatred? There are no answers to these questions, so Karakas doesn't ask them. Instead, quite rightly, his novel succeeds in recreating the time pre-catastrophe, the deafening thunderclap which, though beyond our range of hearing, had unimaginable consequences for our psyches. Do you hear it even now? Listen closely."-Vladimir ArsenicReivews of Celebration:"The translation is exemplary. . . Celebration is an astonishing read reminiscent of Boris Pasternak [and] Alexander Solzhenitsyn . . . With its spirited prose, microscopic attention to character and environment, Karakas leads the reader into the individuals that make up the forces of history." -Robert Allen Papinchak, Asymptote"Ellen Elias-Bursac's graceful translation captures the atmosphere of Karakas' writing, the hopefulness as well as the sense of threat . . . the cinematic quality that makes this such a powerful story."-Antonia Lloyd Jones"The book can easily be read in a single sitting, but it will burrow into your consciousness . . . As fascism and other belligerent ideologies reassert themselves across the globe, Karakas' novella is both timely and sobering . . . its appearance in English, thanks to Elias-Bursac, is unquestionably a cause for celebration."-Los Angeles Review of Books"Every little thing in this book moves, and it will move you . . . The moon and the stars watch along as the trees threaten to strangle Mijo. And all to the tune of birdsong." -Ena Selimovic, World Literature Today

Damir Karakas is an award-winning Croatian author, playwright, musician and journalist. He is the 2021 winner of the prestigious Mesa Selimovic award. Born in 1967 in the remote, mountainous region of Lika, he later studied law and agronomy in Zagreb. During the 1990s he worked as a war reporter from the front lines in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo for national daily newspaper Vecernji list. Blue Moon is his second book to be translated into English.Ellen Elias-Bursac is an award-winning translator of Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian, who has served as the president of the American Literary Translators' Association. Between 1972 and 1990 she lived in Zagreb and for six years she worked in the English Translation Unit of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands. She is the translator of celebrated authors including Dubravka Ugresic and Dasa Drndic, author of Trieste, and of Karakas' first book to appear in English, Celebration.

"What may seem at first glance to be a simple, straightforward love story actually moves at many levels. The author dissects society on the eve of war and transition with a tale that at times surprises with an unexpected gut punch."-Sven Popovic, Moderna vremena "As is so often the case with fine books, there is dancing, singing and drinking as the Titanic goes down and while funeral bells are clanging-for whom? For everyone who sees themself in this, in other words for everyone who can hear the bells toll."-Teofil Pantic, Vreme "Were things better then, under Tito? Did Yugoslavia have a chance? How much did we lose? And what did we gain by murdering each other and radicalising our already irrational hatred? There are no answers to these questions, so Karakas doesn't ask them. Instead, quite rightly, his novel succeeds in recreating the time pre-catastrophe, the deafening thunderclap which, though beyond our range of hearing, had unimaginable consequences for our psyches. Do you hear it even now? Listen closely."-Vladimir ArsenicReivews of Celebration:"The translation is exemplary. . . Celebration is an astonishing read reminiscent of Boris Pasternak [and] Alexander Solzhenitsyn . . . With its spirited prose, microscopic attention to character and environment, Karakas leads the reader into the individuals that make up the forces of history." -Robert Allen Papinchak, Asymptote"Ellen Elias-Bursac's graceful translation captures the atmosphere of Karakas' writing, the hopefulness as well as the sense of threat . . . the cinematic quality that makes this such a powerful story."-Antonia Lloyd Jones"The book can easily be read in a single sitting, but it will burrow into your consciousness . . . As fascism and other belligerent ideologies reassert themselves across the globe, Karakas' novella is both timely and sobering . . . its appearance in English, thanks to Elias-Bursac, is unquestionably a cause for celebration."-Los Angeles Review of Books"Every little thing in this book moves, and it will move you . . . The moon and the stars watch along as the trees threaten to strangle Mijo. And all to the tune of birdsong." -Ena Selimovic, World Literature Today

Damir Karakas is an award-winning Croatian author, playwright, musician and journalist. He is the 2021 winner of the prestigious Mesa Selimovic award. Born in 1967 in the remote, mountainous region of Lika, he later studied law and agronomy in Zagreb. During the 1990s he worked as a war reporter from the front lines in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo for national daily newspaper Vecernji list. Blue Moon is his second book to be translated into English.Ellen Elias-Bursac is an award-winning translator of Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian, who has served as the president of the American Literary Translators' Association. Between 1972 and 1990 she lived in Zagreb and for six years she worked in the English Translation Unit of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands. She is the translator of celebrated authors including Dubravka Ugresic and Dasa Drndic, author of Trieste, and of Karakas' first book to appear in English, Celebration.

"What may seem at first glance to be a simple, straightforward love story actually moves at many levels. The author dissects society on the eve of war and transition with a tale that at times surprises with an unexpected gut punch."-Sven Popovic, Moderna vremena "As is so often the case with fine books, there is dancing, singing and drinking as the Titanic goes down and while funeral bells are clanging-for whom? For everyone who sees themself in this, in other words for everyone who can hear the bells toll."-Teofil Pantic, Vreme "Were things better then, under Tito? Did Yugoslavia have a chance? How much did we lose? And what did we gain by murdering each other and radicalising our already irrational hatred? There are no answers to these questions, so Karakas doesn't ask them. Instead, quite rightly, his novel succeeds in recreating the time pre-catastrophe, the deafening thunderclap which, though beyond our range of hearing, had unimaginable consequences for our psyches. Do you hear it even now? Listen closely."-Vladimir ArsenicReivews of Celebration:"The translation is exemplary. . . Celebration is an astonishing read reminiscent of Boris Pasternak [and] Alexander Solzhenitsyn . . . With its spirited prose, microscopic attention to character and environment, Karakas leads the reader into the individuals that make up the forces of history." -Robert Allen Papinchak, Asymptote"Ellen Elias-Bursac's graceful translation captures the atmosphere of Karakas' writing, the hopefulness as well as the sense of threat . . . the cinematic quality that makes this such a powerful story."-Antonia Lloyd Jones"The book can easily be read in a single sitting, but it will burrow into your consciousness . . . As fascism and other belligerent ideologies reassert themselves across the globe, Karakas' novella is both timely and sobering . . . its appearance in English, thanks to Elias-Bursac, is unquestionably a cause for celebration."-Los Angeles Review of Books"Every little thing in this book moves, and it will move you . . . The moon and the stars watch along as the trees threaten to strangle Mijo. And all to the tune of birdsong." -Ena Selimovic, World Literature Today