Synopses & Reviews
The novel
A Brief Excursion anchors this collection of fiction by one of the most significant postwar Croatian writers. This novel and six stories, including many from Soljan's first book,
Traitors, reveal a sensibility both comic and poignant, devoted to questions of identity and solidarity, of how the one and the many conflict and intermingle-issues that were at the center of both political and literary life for Soljan. Whether fixing up a summerhouse on the Istrian coast or confronting prejudice and the past in a tourist town, Soljan's characters are stirred to action by an undefined longing, only to find the stark landscape of self-knowledge and loss.
Synopsis
It was precisely at that moment, the narrator tells us, that a team of archaeologists and painters, art historians, and photographers set out almost spontaneously in search of the medieval frescoes of Istria. So begins A Brief Excursion, a picaresque adventure in which a tantalizing hint of hidden riches, forgotten beauty, and a whiff of the past lure an odd assortment of characters toward the unexpected.
A Brief Excursion, Antun Soljan's second novel, anchors this collection of fiction by one of the most significant postwar Croatian writers. The works collected here, including many stories from Soljan's first book, Traitors, reveal a sensibility both comic and poignant, devoted to questions of identity and solidarity, of how the one and the many conflict and mingle -- issues that were at the center of both political and literary life for Soljan. In one story after another -- whether fixing up a summerhouse on the Istrian coast or confronting prejudice and the past in a tourist town -- Soljan's characters are stirred to action by a chimera of longing only to find, at the end of their efforts, the stark landscape of self-knowledge and loss.
Antun Soljan's ironic, playful writing, always flirting with the political, asserts itself throughout these stories with their portrayal of the complex identity of his generation.
About the Author
Ellen Elias-Bursac teaches in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literature at Harvard University and is co-chairman of the Southeast European Study Group at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies.