ABOUT
THE BOOK

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.