Bolja polovica hrabrosti
The novel "The Better Half of Courage" (1972), by the Croatian writer Ivan Slamnig, is considered our first true postmodernist novel.
The narrator Flaks meets his old friends: Zito, Berti, Herzl and others. Remembering their young days, they decide to organize a trip to Brestovje, which Flaks will also use to collect old inscriptions from the 19th century, since he is writing his doctoral dissertation in philology. On a visit to Zita, he meets her cousin Anita, with whom he has a brief flirtation, but also her aunt, who writes a novel that she gives him to read (the story is set in southern Croatia, and follows the story of a girl, Ana, who marries a young doctor, Vojko. After the latter dies immediately after the outbreak of the war, she goes to his grave every day and notices a young man in the cemetery. Over time, she begins to wonder if she is coming to the grave of her late husband or to see the mysterious young man again). After returning from Brestovje and having a polemical conversation with his aunt about the development of the story in her novel, Flaks decides to accept the job offered as an English language teacher in Brestovje. He leaves the same evening.
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