Half Murderers is a novel about three generations of Slovenian women from Trieste.The story follows their sudden escape from fascism in Trieste, their stay in a remote rural area in a shared household in Istria, which entails interpersonal complications and finally, with the destruction of an olive grove, triggers a further escape to Maribor, where the three Zanuts are taken in by the Gruden family and housed in their own apartment.
The youngest, Zorka, grows up with teasing from her peers and becomes increasingly politically aware, while her mother Marina experiences an epilogue with a visit from her missing husband Anton, finally living on her own and meeting Guido, a refugee from Trieste, who only then truly reveals to her the horrors of Slovenians under the fascist regime. In the context of today's migration stories, the novel shows a much different, perhaps more tolerant, attitude of Slovenians towards refugees and patriotism.
Hardcover, 20.5 x 13.5 cm, 233 pages
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jedrt L. Maležič (1979) is a writer and literary translator from English and French. In 2016, she published the critically acclaimed short fiction collections Tješkomentalci (nominated for Best Debut) and Bojne barve (nominated for the Novo mesto Award). In 2018, she published the novel Vija vaja ven. Her work Bojne barve has been translated into Macedonian (Begemot, 2019), and the collection Tješkomentalci will soon be published in Spanish (Litterae Slovenicae).
BUKLA REVIEW:
Half Murderers is a novel about three generations of women – a grandmother, a mother and a daughter – who flee fascist Trieste to Istria, and from there to Maribor. Marina, who is symbiotically united with her mother (grandmother), is unable to free herself from her (clerical) shackles, while her daughter Zorka, who grows up without a father and becomes a self-made rebel, is marked by both personal and social circumstances that can be summed up as "refuge".
The fluent, excellently written novel is set by the author in the period between the two world wars, and it seems mature and fresh – it brings to the fore the contemporary pressing topic of refugeeism, which is reflected in the search for one's own identity and exile due to personal or other circumstances. Throughout the entire timeline of history, we are all refugees. In the novel, Jedrt Lapuh Maležič, a translator and writer, uncompromisingly forces readers to think and questions their attitude towards the central theme – refugeeism. The current novel by a contemporary Slovenian writer ends like this: "Go and look for it, this little one, if you must. I have not found it in marriage, nor in a goat shed, nor in the kindness of others, look for it for me." - Sabina Burkeljca, Bukla 160
