Sandorf Passage – förlag

In the sun-drenched landscape of the Adriatic coast, two women's lives intertwine: Amila, a young Bosnian carrying secrets, and Norina, an elderly exile haunted by the past. As Amila navigates a blossoming romance, old wounds resurface, threatening to shatter the bond between two sisters. My Home Somewhere Else explores the shared human experience of emigration, revealing the enduring power of love, loss, and the search for belonging.

For readers who enjoy historical fiction with strong female characters and themes of identity, family, and resilience. Discover a poignant story that resonates across generations and continents.

As air-raid sirens become commonplace, children in an apartment building escape into a world of Barbie dolls, improvising scenarios that mirror the splintering social structure of 1990s Yugoslavia. Innocence clashes with the horrors of war and the allure of Western consumerism.

Maša Kolanović's Underground Barbie deftly captures the power of imagination to overcome hardship, offering a sharp critique of consumer culture amidst the ruins of a socialist experiment. Discover political campaigns defined by what it means to be a “real” Croatian, a refugee ball with “disgusting” dolls, and a mass grave of Ken’s mistresses. For readers of literary fiction, social satire, and war stories.

In Water, Spiderweb, Nada Gašić crafts a spellbinding narrative centered around the 1964 Sava River flood in Zagreb, Croatia. The story follows an eccentric cast of marginalized characters, including a mentally ill man and three sisters grappling with a disfigured version of the Cinderella fairy tale. This novel delves into the motivations behind crimes, both on an individual and societal level.

As the characters piece together clues, Gašić prompts readers to consider their own responsibility in shaping the circumstances that lead to the deaths of the innocent. Perfect for readers seeking character-driven literary fiction, historical fiction, and thought-provoking explorations of social issues. Discover a gripping tale of resilience, memory, and the enduring impact of the past.

First published in 2021, Iraqi writer Hassan Akram’s debut novel, A Plan to Save the World, gazes out through the eyes of a child to explore the period following the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. 

A young and curious Hassan attempts to devise a plan to eliminate warfare from his homeland, and the world. Inspired by the eccentric Miran, who prefers the company of chickens over people, and messages transmitted to him by his dead uncle through a tape recorder, Hassan sets out from Basra on a quest: “I had to run in every direction, to explore this life myself.” 

In A Plan to Save the World, childhood idealism clashes with the stark realities of living through war in a boy’s mission to not only save the world, but himself.

There is nothing easy about being the Minister of Culture of Montenegro—but the next nine days for Valentin Kovacevic will be especially difficult. During an artist’s performance, he has accidentally killed her, and now, if he hopes to preserve both his position and his sanity, he must navigate the murky corridors of government bureaucracy, cultural expectations, and relentless family pressures.

The Minister, winner of the 2020 European Union Prize for Literature, is a darkly satirical political noir that exposes the harsh realities behind democratic “transitions.” It reveals how the promises of reform can empower corrupt politicians and criminal networks, fuel nationalism, and wipe out the middle class. Sharp, unsettling, and bitingly relevant, it is a portrait of a society where truth is slippery, power is dangerous, and survival demands moral compromise.

Hard to categorize, impossible to forget, Dinko Telecan’s The Book of Visits engages with the world apace with the comings and goings of nature, those we love, and those we will never know. In the smallest of details—from the blooming of flowers to the angles of buildings and fleeting glances between two people—Telecan’s work illuminates the universal elements of existence in fresh and unforgettable ways.

It’s 1481, and as seen from the centers of power in Rome and Venice, the cultures of Europe are under threat from the expansion of the Ottoman Empire. When the exalted Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror dies his eldest son, Bayezid, takes the throne. However, discontented factions within the Ottoman army urge Mehmed’s second son, Cem, a well-educated and experienced warrior, to oppose his brother’s ascension, setting off a ruthless power struggle and forcing Cem into long years of exile, a pawn for European powers that are struggling to maintain the order they have imposed on the continent over the course of centuries.

The Case of Cem maintains lasting resonance for being a personal exploration of emigration and loss as told through the historical era during which the politics of the East and West were sketched out with utter clarity. These early lines of demarcation, as voiced through Christian and Muslim emissaries, power hungry rulers, unflinching warriors, and poets, have indelibly influenced the word as we know it today.