Name: Đorđić se vrača
Price: 27 EUR
Availability: InStock
Rating: 5.0000 (3 reviews)
ISBN: 9789612847272

Đorđić Is Back

Đorđić se vrača

Goran Vojnović

Genre:: Novel
Year of publication:: 2021
Number of pages:: 340
Rights sold:: Austria (Folio Verlag), Bulgaria (ICU), Croatia (Fraktura), Italy (Keller editore), North Macedonia (ILI-ILI), Serbia (Geopoetika), Sweden (Ramus)
Available reading materials:: German pdf, English sample translation

It’s August 2017 and the start of the European Basketball Championship when Marko Đorđić arrives, unannounced, in Fužine, the notorious suburb of Ljubljana where he grew up. For the first time since moving to Bosnia more than a decade ago, he returns indefinitely, maybe even forever. But he doesn’t really know what to do in Fužine. His father Radovan has stomach cancer and is waiting for surgery, his mother Ranka cares for his father and is becoming a nervous wreck herself, and his childhood friends, Adi, Aco and Dejan, are moving in circles to which Marko no longer belongs. Adi is drowning in drugs, Aco has totally dedicated himself to crime, and Dejan is lost in small-town life on the other side of Slovenia. Nowadays, the only thing binding these old friends is their memories.
With each new day, with each new victory of the Slovenian national basketball team, it becomes clearer that Marko no longer has a place in Slovenia. A decade of living in Bosnia, marked by nationalism, war trauma and an unhappy first love, has turned a once confused teenager into an emotional wreck of a young man, whose turbulent inner world is a mirror image of the outside one.

Shortlisted for the Book of the Year Award 2021

Shortlisted for the Kritiško sito Award for best book of the year 2022

Longlisted for the Kresnik Award for best novel of the year 2022

Đorđić Is Back is a sad tale about resignation, about the cruel reality of growing up, about how youthful zeal does not last forever. [...] Speaking through Marko are years of living in a place marked by trauma and pain, so bursting from the young man are hatred and resentment, be it in the form of irony or even aggression. Đorđić Is Back is thus also a sharp criticism of all that is currently wrong with humanity – endless crises, populism, national intolerance etc. that create inaccessible abysses and sow discord among friends and family members. Even more, it appears as if both Marko Đorđić as well as Goran Vojnović feel uprooted in a world that is spinning in the wrong direction and is, as the writer himself says, sinking back into darkness, and each in their own way try and handle this sense of alienation. ... With the novel Đorđić Is Back Goran Vojnović has successfully cracked one of the toughest nuts for any writer: publishing a sequel to a bestseller. In doing so he has once more proved to be a mature author who distinguishes himself not only with his exceptional mastery of language but also with the gravity of his substance.

Radio Slovenia
The novel Đorđić Is Back on the one hand looks at the issue of assimilation, a theme of notable significance during the present refugee crisis, and considers the question of a Serb in Bosnia. The novel reflects on the political problems in Bosnia but also social problems in Slovenia. It documents the changes that have taken place, also reflected in the fact that Slovenia managed to become a European basketball heavyweight. The comprehension that people grow up but do not necessarily change, and that the reasons for this are complex, is the social context that serves as the background to the story. On the other hand, the second half of the novel presents more intimate moments such as Radovan’s illness, relationships within the Đorđić family and Marko's crushes and friendships, hanging by a thread, yet still valid… What is especially important in this is that Vojnović bets on the balance between one and the other, committing himself to neither an overtly contextual nor an immanent critique of society. [...] Despite its length, the novel is one you read straight through, and perhaps the most credit for this goes to Vojnović’s carefully chosen and skilfully utilised language.

Radio Slovenia
Compared to some of his previous novels, [Vojnović] avoids many sentimental metaphors. This time Marko prefers to compare his life to a humble freight train, “There will never be an end to this cargo I’m hauling along.” Despite the lengthy narrative, the author constantly keeps up the pace; be it buying flour for his mother Ranka or being unable to tell his father Radovan that he is leaving again, this pace is always dictated by Marko's tense and acute consciousness. And while he is capable of keeping a (critical) distance from his friends Adi and Aco's self-destructive ideas, he manages to draw us in with retrospective deliberations that are gently balanced explanations of events of the last decade, and with ongoing dialogues that, as well as out loud (with Ranka, with Radovan…) Marko conducts with himself, inside his head, if his defences fail. When they fail.

Dnevnik
While the narrator interlaces events with impressions of everyday life on the Fužine housing estate and the values of the protagonists, Marko also sees the broader picture, giving his insight greater depth. [...] Thus, when he describes a different aspect of Bosnia, one we apparently do not want to see, the provincial, peripheral Bosnia that is vanishing, one that will never again be possible to capture, it seems that he is also talking of the place he has returned to, Slovenia, and it is in these moments that Vojnović’s mastery truly shines. The same with certain dialogues, how he skilfully guides along his characters, and of course with the apt changes in the variety of language used.

AirBeletrina
Đorđić Is Back is a kind of compromise between the humorous Southern Scum Go Home! and Vojnović’s more complex literature with its proven excellence, especially The Fig Tree. At the same time, it is the only possible and most faithful sequel to Southern Scum Go Home!. Written in a different style, either distinctly more ambitious, or with elements of political correctness, the continuation of the story would simply not work. [...] Southern Scum Go Home! is not a book that necessarily needed a sequel – but when the reader turns the first few pages of the novel Đorđić Is Back, it certainly seems as if it did.

Mladina
Vojnović cleverly placed the events in the period of the 2017 EuroBasket Championship that concluded with a final match between Slovenia and Serbia, and of course an ultimate win for Slovenia. An apparently totally irrelevant sports event is of huge importance for the narrative and the personal growth of the protagonist, as every match, following the players who are basically Marko’s generation, is a bitter reminder that with more persistence and different support from his family and society, Marko could well now also be playing on the courts of the European Championship. Responsibility for his decisions, his actions, and also for his family, finally catch up with Marko. Will Marko Đorđić manage to mature and take hold of the reins of his own success and happiness?

book blogger Ajda Lalič
Marko Đorđić is still one of the best characters in Slovenian literature and a great deal of this is due to Vojnović who as an author has exceeded all forecasts. [...] The book is fantastic. We can once again experience the magnificent success of the Slovenian team at EuroBasket, but this is not what is important. What is important is the feeling that you don't stand out from the average. That nothing is wrong with that carries an even greater meaning. What is important is that Goran Vojnović is one of the greatest Slovenian writers of all times. Đorđić Is Back is one of the best books of the year and essential summer reading. To the bookshop! Buy a copy and support the author and bookshops in general. Just like Ranka and Radovan support each other - quietly but with love. If this was his first novel, it would launch the author as one of the stars of Slovenian publishing but as we are already used to the quality of his books, all we can say when we come across this marvellous novel is, “Vojnović.”

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