Hotel Zagorje

In the summer of 1991, a nine-year-old girl leaves Vukovar, leaving her parents in the city where the war begins. The novel "Hotel Zagorje" is the story of her growing up during seven years of exile, of the continuous struggle for a few square meters where she will live with her mother and brother, of the constant expectation of news about her father. But this is not a dark book.

The heroine Ivana Simić Bodrožić lacks neither humor nor spirit, and her upbringing has none of what upbringings are made of: writing letters to politicians and visiting ministries are intertwined here with children's tenderness and cruelty, first dates, first boyfriends... as well as fates those with whom the exile family crossed paths, a whole colorful gallery of characters who faithfully paint the picture of Croatia in those years.

The main character changes and grows up, as does the whole society around her, but although this growing up is painful, there is also laughter and playfulness and - love. Speaking about people without hiding, about good and evil without naming them, Ivana Simić Bodrožić wrote an extremely powerful and dramatic story that will give us back something of our lost innocence.