U potrazi za Kainom i Abelom
In the novel In Search of Cain and Abel, Roman Pavić follows surgeon Ivan Mandić in his search for a painting by Celestin Medović, revealing the fate of lawyer Niko Andrijašević and the history of these areas through wars and tragedies.
Top Zagreb surgeon Ivan Mandić is a great lover of art, literature and painting. When one day, while strolling through the art gallery in Dežmanovo prolaz, he sees Celestin Medović's painting Cain and Abel, he knows that he would like to have it on his wall. In his search for the painting, he unknowingly enters the world of fake collectors, art dealers, forgers and peculiar characters. The coveted Medović is owned by an unusual couple, Vatroslav and Micika, and the paintings are located in the most unusual places in their apartments. Ivan will do everything to get hold of the painting, but in his search he will also learn its fate. Cain and Abel, together with another Medović painting, Hlap, were in the collection of the most famous Sarajevo lawyer of the first half of the 20th century, Niko Andrijašević.
The fate of the painting, the painter, but above all the Andrijašević family, is turbulent and tragic, through it the history of our region from the end of the nineteenth century is refracted, through the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, both wars and the post-war period, tragedies, fratricides take on a biblical character, as do the characters in the painting itself.
In Search of Cain and Abel is a novel about passion for art, about the irresistible attraction of some paintings, about history and its influence on each individual. Roman Pavić carefully, meticulously, with many details, with a touch of humor and tragedy, revives a work of art, an era, but also our modernity, depicts human flaws and values, and as in Medović's masterpiece, death and life, love and passion, fear and hope in all their nuances appear before us.
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