ABOUT
THE BOOK

Translated from the Slovene by Jason Blake

2020 Longlist

It’s 2036, twenty-five years after the ‘Great Shutdown’ destroyed the global communications network. In this post-Internet world, three childhood friends come together to celebrate their fiftieth birthdays. But with Zoja, a radical poet; Evan, an addict theatre director; and Kras, a former minister for war in attendance, this was never going to be a subdued occasion…

This hilariously anarchic debut plunges the reader into a world that is at once unthinkable and disturbingly familiar. Alarming, exhilarating and keenly focused on the contradictions of modernity, this is an astounding novel from a powerful new voice.

About the Author

Jasmin B. Frelih’s debut novel In/Half was published in 2013 to great critical acclaim, receiving the best literary debut award at the annual Slovenian Book Fair as well as the EU Prize for Literature. In/Half was also shortlisted for the Kresnik Award, and translation rights have been sold to more than ten territories. He lives in Slovenia.

Librarian’s Comments

Although this is Frelih’s debut novel, his writing is surprisingly mature.  He mixes different styles, describing three different worlds from highly technological to the domestic.  Narrator is lyric, but the space, where things are happening is apocalyptic. This is a story about weak, persistently seeking individuals who never find the thing that would make them happy. Mestna knjižnica Ljubljana, Slovenia