Fiction
Mojstrovina/The Masterpiece
by Ana Schnabl
Description
The golden 1980s in the Socialist Yugoslavia were a curious time, a time when the country undoubtedly already began its descent into disintegration, but when the bloody years that would follow seemed inconceivable. A time of until then unprecedented freedom of thought and travel, a time of dissident movements and heady music and literary scenes. But also a time when the state still very much had a tight grip on the lives of its citizens, not least through its state security service and its web of informants.
It is 1985 and Adam is a professor of literature at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana who, after twenty years, tries his hand at writing again and Ana is the editor that receives his manuscript The Masterpiece. The protagonists soon cross the lines of their professional relationship and become entangled in an intense, adulterous affair. But Adam moves in the dissident circles and Ana owes her position as the youngest editor in the history of the biggest state publishing house to her cooperation with the dark side of the government.
The Masterpiece is as much a love story as it a political drama that not only rocks the lives of the two main characters, but also changes the map of the world.
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Rights Information
Rights sold
Austria (Folio Verlag)
UK (Istros Books)
Reviews
It’s a rare occasion that Slovenian is used in such a vivid manner. It’s a rare occasion that a young (or any) author writing in Slovenian so thoroughly – emotionally, physically, reflexively and reflectively – grasps the time, space and spirit of a generation, while keeping their writing free of petit-bourgeois moral judgments, taboos, ideologies, fake aesthetics, clichés, redundancies and overcompensations that belong in high school, as the author is wont to say … Schnabl, a clever student of human nature and a relentless examiner of her environment and circumstances, (almost) never exaggerates. – Bukla
What sets Schnabl apart is her deliberate turn from cynicism. Thanks in part to its absence, the author’s dense writing never becomes oppressive, not even when at its most candid, and dispenses commentary on controlling social practices the as if it were an afterthought. – Delo
Author Biography
Ana Schnabl (1985) is a writer, journalist and literary critic. A doctoral student of philosophy since 2016, her research focuses on the female autobiography and confession and women in psychoanalysis. She has written for the literary journal Literatura and the online literary magazine AirBeletrina, has collaborated with the daily Dnevnik and is the first editor of the European Review of Poetry, Books and Culture. In 2014, her story MDMA was the winner of AirBeletrina’s short fiction contest. Her book debut, the short story collection Disentangling (Razvezani), was published in 2017 and among numerous other laurels received the Best Debut Award of the Slovenian Book Fair.
Beletrina Academic Press
Beletrina Academic Press, established 1996, is a leading Slovenian literary publisher that has gained its reputation by introducing prominent works of classic and contemporary world and national fiction and non-fiction to Slovenian readers. Beletrina currently represents over 20 of the best Slovenian authors, from the great classics to the biggest contemporary names and the most promising up and coming authors.
View all titlesBibliographic Information
- Publisher Beletrina Academic Press
- Orginal LanguageSlovenian
- ISBN/Identifier 9789612846206
- Publication Country or regionSlovenia
- Pages217
- ReadershipGeneral
- Publish StatusPublished
- Copyright Year2020
