Novel
Impure Blood
Нечиста крв
Bora Stanković · 1910
Synopsis
In Vranje, at the end of the nineteenth century, Sofka, daughter of Efendi Mita, grows up beautiful and proud in an old house of notables whose fortune has fallen apart since the town ceased to be Ottoman. She has only one fear, that her family will sell the house. Her father, to save what remains, promises her to Tomča, a twelve-year-old boy, son of the wealthy Marko, an upstart who has the means to pay.
Context
The novel was published in 1910. It stands at the turning point that the author painted throughout his work, between 1878, when Vranje passed from the Ottoman Empire to Serbia, and the beginning of the twentieth century, when the town's old merchant families were ruined by the clash of old and new values. It has been brought to the screen twice, in 1948 under the title Sofka, then by Stojan Stojčić, in a film completed in 1991 and released in 1997.
Who it is for
About three hundred pages of a slow narrative, kept very close to a single consciousness. The language preserves the speech of Vranje, and the world described is still half Ottoman.
Prizes and reception
The most famous novel of its author, regarded as one of the first modern Serbian novels and translated into many European languages.