Novel
Reality
Resničnost
Lojze Kovačič · 1972
Synopsis
At the end of the forties, a young Slovene does his military service in Macedonia, where he is called the scribe. Because he protested about the food, hot pepper as the only meal, and about the lack of water, he is accused of rebellion against the state and sent to a disciplinary unit. There, in crushing heat and under constant threat, he cleans rusty grenades with a wire brush and paraffin, amid bullying that the officers encourage. Then comes the return to the army, where he takes care to give no further hold over him.
Context
The novel takes up the material of a book begun in 1956 about his military service, an extract from which appeared in 1957 in the journal Beseda: the issue was seized, the author prosecuted for giving a malicious picture of the army, then acquitted, and the manuscript later burned in the fire at his flat. It appeared in 1972 from Obzorja, joined to another narrative, and Beletrina reissued it in 2023. Written in the third person, in a deliberately cold and distant language, it begins in the middle of the action and belongs to autofiction.
Who it is for
A short novel in a spare style, which can be read without knowing Yugoslav history; this book has not been translated into French.
Prizes and reception
Prešeren Prize 1973 for the volume that brought together the two narratives; reissued in 2023 with an afterword by Jure Jakob.
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