On January 01, 2024, the novel Träume und Kulissen in the translation by Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp will be published under the title Split by AmazonCrossing in the USA. A pre-order of the book, the e-book and the audio book is now possible.
Nazis, spies, romance, and murder collide in prewar eastern Europe in a mesmerizing historical novel by the award-winning author of Oliva’s Garden.
It’s 1936. The seaside-resort village of Split on the Adriatic coast bustles. The tourist spots are booming, passenger steamers dot the harbor, and Jewish émigrés have found tenuous refuge from persecution. But as war in Europe looms, Split is also a nest of spies, fascists, and smugglers—and now, a locale suspiciously scouted by a German Reich film crew. Then one summer morning it becomes the scene of a murder investigation when a corpse is found entangled in fishing nets in the port.
With so many suspects from all walks of life and with a myriad of motives at a time when tensions are boiling over, crime superintendent Mario Bulat has only rumors to follow. Political archrivals will take advantage of the crime. Local lovers will become embroiled in it. And a propagandist filmmaker will find himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. War is coming, and for some in Split, it’s already here.
More information about the publication.
Tesla oder die Vollendung der Kreise has been published on 21 September 2023.
Nikola Tesla, inventor between genius and madness, born with Serbian roots in what is now Croatia, a dazzling figure in the social life of New York around 1900, was already legendary during his lifetime. One of his admirers was the young Anton from Zadar, who was expelled from school after political activities against the Austrian Emperor and emigrated to America with ten dollars in his pocket. There he quickly finds his feet, learns English, works as an interpreter in the anatomical museum of a German doctor on Broadway and eventually studies medicine. He meets the old, lonely, whimsical Tesla, his idol, and becomes his friend in long conversations about his life and God and the world. But then Anton receives a message from Europe: he is to return to look after his old parents. So he sets off again, with his wife and children, into the poverty of neglected villages in the hinterland of Dalmatia shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. As a parting gift, Tesla entrusts him with the plans for a "peace weapon" and asks him to search for a lost portrait that will not reappear until 2006.
Träume und Kulissen has been published on 16 July 2021.
A harbour town on the Adriatic as a backdrop for small and large tragedies and an age of dreams, with which some make business, others films, but few make their fortune.
Summer 1936: In Split, the "pearl of the sea" on the Adriatic coast, colourful hustle and bustle and frivolous ease reign. But increasingly, Jews on the run, communists and other opponents of the Nazi regime mingle with the tourists of the European haute bourgeoisie, and with them smugglers and spies from all over the world. German film crews arouse no less suspicion, even if the locals are proud that their city is considered a popular filming location for international cinematography. The beaches, cafés and pubs are full, in the harbour passenger liners and military ships lie alongside fishing boats - and one morning a corpse. There are few leads, and they lead in all directions. Mario Bulat begins to investigate, but in fact everyone already seems to know more than he does. Träume und Kulissen is a dazzling kaleidoscope of Mediterranean life in an overheated era, a social novel rich in tones and colours about a world on the brink of disaster despite all the promises of progress. And last but not least, this book is a literary declaration of love to a place of longing.
"Träume und Kulissen" has been published in the Croatian translation by Bojana Bajić by the Fraktura publishing house from Zagreb in June 2022.
Olivas Garten has been published on 16 August 2013.
