Imena

Each text is a short, moving and critical reminiscence: from childhood on Vis and Neretva, through the youth of Mostar and the Zagreb underground in the 1970s, to exile in Belgrade in 1991.

Babić, a Holocaust survivor on his mother's side (losing 20 family members), evokes lives like Stojan Vučićević from Metković, his grandfather and his Neretva neighbors – Serbs, Croats, Jews – emphasizing their Yugoslav orientation and the tragic division caused by the war. In reviews (Maxportal, 2022), the book is described as a "martyrology of the last writer of great Yugoslav literature": Babić mentions the Neretva people, the people of Bileća, but also his ancestors buried in the Slivanj cemetery, where "they can be equally Serbian and Croatian".

Miljenko Jergović (Ajfelov most) praises Babić's solitary strength: "A man without a homeland, a hermit in the middle of Zagreb, a prophet of the apocalypse before the war." Telegram (2022) highlights hybridity – memoirs, essays, poems – and Babić's marginalization in Croatia and Serbia, despite authoring over 100 books. Autograf.hr (2014) highlights his resistance to nationalism, with documents about the objections of the Church and the SKH in the 1980s.

"Names" is a book of sadness for lost bridges, a critique of fragmentation ("We know each other less and less") and a call to memory. The Prosvjeta edition is rare, sought after among fans of Yugo-nostalgia and the audience in which Babić has a cult status.