Translated from the Slovene by Rawley Grau
2018 Longlist
Deftly blending fiction, history and journalism, Dušan Šarotar takes the reader on a deeply reflective yet kaleidoscopic journey from northern to southern Europe. In a manner reminiscent of W.G. Sebald, he supplements his engrossing narrative with photographs, which help to blur the lines between fiction and journalism. The writer’s experience of landscape is bound up in a personal yet elusive search for self-discovery, as he and a diverse group of international fellow travellers relate in their distinctive and memorable voices their unique stories and common quest for somewhere they might call home.
Panorama is a title in the World Series by Peter Owen Publishers in association with Istros Books, bringing some of the best contemporary writing from Slovenia to English-speaking readers. The other titles in the Slovenian Autumn season are Three Loves, One Death by Evald Flisar and None Like Her by Jela Krečič.
About the author & translator
Dušan Šarotar is a Slovenian writer, poet, screenwriter and photographer. He has published five novels (Potapljanje na dah/ Island of the Dead, 1999, Nočitev z zajtrkom/Bed and Breakfast, 2003, Biljard v Dobrayu/Billiards at the Hotel Dobray, 2007, Ostani z mano, duša moja/ Stay with me, my dear, 2011 and Panorama, 2015), two collections of short stories (Mrtvi kot/ Blind Spot, 2002, and Nostalgia, 2010), three poetry collections (Občutek za veter/Feel for the Wind, 2004, Krajina v molu/ Landscape in Minor, 2006 and Hiša mojega sina/ The House of My Son, 2009) and book of essays (Ne morje ne zemlja/Not Sea Not Earth, 2012). Šarotar is also author of fifteen screenplays for documentary and feature films. His short film, Mario was watching the sea with love, based on authors short stories from the collection Blind Spot and on his screenplay, won in 2016 Global short film award in New York and the first prize in Ningbo, China, for the “best short film” in selection of Central and East European film selection. Šarotar has also had several photographic exhibitions in national galleries and abroad. Photographies from his series Souls was included in permanent collection in Art gallerie of Prekmurje.
Rawley Grau, originally from Baltimore, has lived in Ljubljana since 2001. His translations from Slovene include prose works by Vlado Žabot and Boris Pintar, a play by Ivan Cankar and essays by Aleš Debeljak as well as poetry by Miljana Cunta, Janez Ramoveš, Andrej Rozman Roza and others. He has also translated (from Russian), co-edited and annotated the book A Science Not for the Earth: Selected Poems and Letters by the nineteenth-century poet Yevgeny Baratynsky. His translation of Dry Season by Gabriela Babnik – winner of the EU Prize for Literature 2013 – was published in 2015 by Istros Books.