The German Lottery

Translated from the original Slovenian by Urška Zupanec

2014 Longlist

She finally managed to slip the line on the hook and rescue the washing.
We were facing each other, completely soaked.
‘Thank you!’
I nodded. ‘Comrade, a postman is always ready to help.’
‘That’s nice to hear.
I straightened my uniform and put the bag over my shoulder.
‘Do you come round in the evenings too?’
A young postman in 1950s Yugoslavia delivers a registered letter to a woman who is hanging out her washing . . . Soon he is involved in a lottery scheme devised by the woman’s husband, who has been spending some time in prison – a scheme, he is persuaded, that will bring wealth and happiness to the town’s poorest and most deserving citizens.
How did he get it so wrong? As the narrator recalls for his grandchildren his coming-of-age, Miha Mazzini constructs a political fable that is also a satire on youthful idealism, greed, and the coincidence between our beliefs and what we want to believe.

(From Publisher)

About the Author

The Slovenian writer and film-maker Miha Mazzini, born in 1961, is the author of twenty-three books. The Cartier Project was ex-Yugoslavia’s all-time bestselling novel and was made into a feature film. Guarding Hanna was longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2004. In 2011 the first of his stories to be published in the US won a Pushcart Prize.