Miha Mazzini
Erased (Izbrisana)
SLOVENIA
BOOK
The novel tells the story of Zala Jovanović, a single mother who discovers at the maternity ward that neither she nor her newborn son officially exist. Out of the blue, someone in her situation can face deportation, lose their housing, their job, their medical care, and even their child… Her desperate search for a way out of this complicated situation turns into a gripping drama that reveals the dark side of Slovenian independence, when, in 1992, 25,671 people were illegally removed from Slovenia’s population registry without prior notice and without the possibility of appeal. Their only “crime” was that they were not born in the Slovenian part of the former Yugoslavia.
Published by Altenberg, 2024
AUTHOR
© Matej Pušnik
Miha Mazzini (*1961) is a Slovenian writer, screenwriter, and director. He is the author of more than thirty literary works, as well as a screenwriter and director of both documentary and feature films. He has received numerous awards at home and abroad for his literary and film work. The author’s debut novel, Drobtinice (Crumbs, 1986), was met with great acclaim and won the Slovenian Novel of the Year award. Director Milan Zupanič adapted it into the feature film Operacija Cartier (*The Cartier Project, 1992). Mazzini is also the screenwriter of the three-time award-winning film Sladke sanje (Sweet Dreams, 2001), which he later adapted into a novel titled Kralj ropotajočih duhov (The King of Rattling Spirits, 2001). This novel was published in Czech translation as Já, Tito a gramofon (2005).
TRANSLATION
Aleš Kozár
