Andrej Blatnik – författare

The first collection of stories by Slovenian writer Andrej Blatnik to appear in English, Skinswaps represents a new ethos in the literature of post-Communist Eastern Europe. Blatnik's vision of the isolation, self-deception, violence, and emotional deterioration of human experience is powerfully rendered, yet tempered by a light touch and humane sense of irony.

This collection of sharp, spare, occasionally absurd, cruel, touching, and yet always generous short-short fictions addresses the fundamental difficulty we have in making the people we love understand what we want and need. Demonstrating that language and intimacy are as much barriers between human beings as ways of connecting them, Andrej Blatnik here provides us with a guided tour of the slips, misunderstandings, and blind alleys we each manage to fall foul of on a daily basis—no closer to understanding the motives of our families, friends, lovers, or coworkers than we are those of a complete stranger . . . or, indeed, our own.

With some echoes of Kafka and Vonnegut, this novel looks for the soul of the 21st century and finds an abyss." — Kirkus Reviews, Starred ReviewAndrej Blatnik’s ambitious novel, Change Me, tells the story of a man’s determination to radically transform himself and to alter the world that has embraced globalization as the God of the future.

Zwischen Liebe, Aufbegehren und Punkrock: Eine Nahaufnahme von der Entstehung des modernen Sloweniens.Als bei einer politischen Kundgebung ein zögerlicher Konformist einer entschlossenen Rebellin auf die blauen Samtschuhe tritt, nimmt eine verzwickte Liebesgeschichte ihren Lauf. Die beiden gehen Eis essen, besuchen Punk-Konzerte und reden, reden, reden. Wortreich begleitet auch der Vater des jungen Mannes die Umwälzung der späten Achtzigerjahre. Mit skurrilen Seitengesprächen versucht er den Sohn auf die aufziehenden neuen Zeiten einzuschwören und Kapital daraus zu schlagen. Am Ende stehen die slowenische Unabhängigkeit und Ratlosigkeit.

This collection of sharp, spare, occasionally absurd, cruel, touching miniatures addresses the fundamental difficulty we have in making the people we love understand what we want and need. Demonstrating that language and intimacy are as much barriers between human beings as ways of connecting them, Andrej Blatnik here provides us with a guided tour of the slips, misunderstandings, and blind alleys we each manage to fall foul of on a daily basis--no closer to understanding the motives of our families, friends, lovers, or coworkers than we are those of a complete stranger... or, indeed, our own. Partly parables, partly fairy tales, partly sketches for novels that will never be written, "You Do Understand" is a perfect comedy of errors--the errors of a species of talkers who've never learned how to listen.