Point Nemo
14,00 €Mladen Kopjar is an author with extensive experience in writing different types of literary texts. In “Point Nemo”, his first collection of poetry, this experience is reflected in the ease and skill with which he builds his poetic world, as well as in his thoughtful and consistent poetics. The origins of the poems are usually in everyday life, its spaces, objects, small events, memories, but thanks to the gift of observation and skillful selection of details, the author skillfully avoids the superficiality and banality of “realistic” writing. Freedom and imagination lead him from concrete experience to surreal images in which personal associations are mixed with various fragments from the ubiquitous virtual space. But the unique tone of this collection stems from the deep emotionality with which the whole is imbued; the author addresses (or talks about) his loved ones: wife, child, parents, meandering through areas of tenderness and pain. In that intimate space, the outside world is mirrored in flashes; the original clash between an authentically, intensely internal world and a diverse, sometimes aggressive external world gives this poetry strength and interest.
A Reflection in the Rain
17,00 €Jasmina Kosanović, the author of a series of interesting and well-received picture books, does not seem to know how to tell a story about rain. Instead of words, images come to her, all airy and gentle – truly rainy. But for those who like to give themselves over to their imagination, every illustration in this picture book can be the beginning of an adventure. What are those people waiting for under their umbrellas? Who does a sad man with a scarf break up with? Who is behind the windows where the drops are pouring down? Where is the sailboat sailing under an almost clear, yet still rain-soaked sky? A series of rainy scenes results in the author seeing her own self clearly, sun kissed. Those who imagine a series of their own rainy stories will perhaps find out something about themselves, once they eventually emerge from Jasmina’s dreamy, watercolour world.
The Little Key
17,00 €Starting from a banal event – a shoe that was untied and a key found on the street – the little heroine of this picture book talks about her loved ones. For each of them, such a key could serve something, unlock something of theirs: mom’s glass showcase, dad’s mysterious drawer, a compartment with love letters in grandma’s cabinet, a friend’s special pencil case, her brother’s box with figurines of dragons and knights. With each contemplation of the key, an image from everyday life is “unlocked”. But in the end, the girl concludes that the key will best serve her and her own imagination.
The author of this story about curiosity is the acclaimed and experienced writer Sanja Lovrenčić, and the book was illustrated by Lucija Mrzljak, an award-winning artist educated in Zagreb, Prague, Krakow and Tallinn.
Meandering with Julije Knifer
18,00 €“Whenever I find something that I like, I want to tell a story about it” , says the narrator of this book. But she will by no means tell the story of Julije Knifer and his famous meander motif alone. The painter himself talks about anti-paintings and anti-bulbs, about the rhythms of black and white, vertical and horizontal lines, research and the search for extremes – all of this in his own words taken from original diary entries. And the illustrations inspired by his art also tell the readers about his journey towards and with meanders in their own way. In the fifth picture book of their Croatian fine art series, Sanja Lovrenčić and Dominik Vuković present the work of one of the most original and respected Croatian artists of the twentieth century, well-recognized abroad.
Kosjenka and Regoč
17,00 €One of the most popular fairy tales penned by Ivana Brlić Mažuranić, and one of those that Croatian children first encounter, is precisely the one about Regoč. However, even though the original story is entitled simply “Regoč”, the little fairy Kosjenka plays a more important role in it. Curious and lively, she sets the sluggish giant on an adventure. Cheerful when she finds company, compassionate in times of trouble, she sacrifices all her fairy magic for new friends, for children from two feuding villages near the Zlovoda lake. Although the two main characters belong to the realm of the fantastical, the story ends on a perfectly human note, with the construction of a new village. And while Regoč returns to his town of Legen, Kosjenka can no longer go back among the fairies, so she stays with the children from the village – as well as with little readers. For this silent book, visual artist Vendi Vernić told Ivana Brlić Mažuranić’s story in a purely visual language. For those who do not know the original, there is a small glossary at the beginning. Converted into pictures, the story becomes accessible to preschool readers.
The Creepy House
16,00 €The Creepy House is a skilful blend of a story about a family intending to move from the city to an old house surrounded by nature, an old-fashioned game of riddles, and fairy-tale elements that lend the whole book an air of fantasy that children find so irresistible. Solving the riddles given to them by the mysterious voice from the fireplace, Florijan and Klara explore the house and the garden, noticing so many things they did not see at first. With a bit of fear and lots of laughter, they experience a real adventure in search of a key they will use to ‘unlock’ the magic of their future home… The author shows a very good understanding of a child’s way of thinking and combines an imaginative plot with a subtle educational element about the world of plants and animals. The illustrator follows the story closely, complementing it with a number of small artistic surprises.
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All My People But Me
13,00 €Luka Mavretić’s third poetry collection “All My People But Me” is a series of “inner journeys” – journeys that the author announces in the first poems of this very thoughtfully built piece. The young poet balances between lyrical verses and prosaic sentences, he strives towards a refined simplicity and manages to create a conversational tone, which is an important building block of his poetical world. An abundance of motives and a diary-like directness make this book an interesting and fresh collection. Even though he uses interpunction which creates finished, harmonical sentences and gives the text a prosaic tone, his verses remain verses, lines with a natural and easy flow. Despite a breezy atmosphere that the author creates, this is a collection of well thought-through and refined texts – Luka Mavretić is a poet who, in an alchemy of words, transforms chosen glimpses of reality into memorable and luminous images.
Herbarium – Stories of Plants
11,60 €Jana Prević Finderle’s “Herbarium” could both be seen as a follow-up to her debut “The travertine bridge”, published in 2019, and its sheer opposite. One could argue that it’s a follow-up, because it is a book of short prose inspired by the author’s own experiences, delivered in a simple and direct way – and that it’s an opposite, as “The travertine bridge” was dedicated to travels and encounters, a horizontal motion through space, while “Herbarium”, a book about the lives of plants and the people closest to the author, focuses on travelling vertically, through time. For every herbarium, including Jana’s, is a book of memories. It seems that we live in times of increased sensitivity for the green world that surrounds us, a world that is getting more endangered with every day. But Jana’s soft spot for plantlife isn’t a result of any trend, although the need to create a herbarium made of words could have been influenced by the increasing eco-awareness in times of global warming. This author has, since early childhood, been living her life in close connection to plantlife, which enables her to talk about it from a personal, almost lyrical, perspective. Her authentic language depicts a simple closeness. The focus doesn’t lie on a problem or on the author’s knowledge of botany – which she clearly has – but rather on her personal experiences, her discoveries, little miracles she encounters, like the ones where her aunt Mirjana, in Jana’s adolescent days of spleen, tells her about an acorn and an oak.
Night on Earth
15,60 €As night falls, the world we see is changing. What seemed familiar under daylight now becomes strange and mysterious. And this might be the reason why night inspires artists to fantasize about it over and over again. The author of this picture books sees Night as a woman in a starry dress, a queen both young and olden, who arrives with her suite of nocturnal creatures, blending dream with reality. She creates space for clocks without pointers, enigmatic encounters, tea-drinking animals. She waves her hand, and wondrous beings obey her, whether on land or at sea. She waves her hand, and beginnings of stories begin to unfold, flags of faraway kingdoms start flying. A mixture of ages, fairy-tale motives and outer space travel comes to life wherever she goes. There is no obstacle for voyagers in her darkness, every direction is good, on every side unending expanse of her realm… And as she leaves – look, who bids her farewell on the balcony there, who is returning home climbing those stairs? – dreams leave with her, they all go to sleep. That’s what Jasmina’s night is like, wide open for the fantasy of her readers.
Book #4746
Marija in Cities
15,66 €Marija in Cities belongs to the series of Sanja Lovrenčić’s picture books about Croatian visual artists; this one is about the well-known photographer Marija Braut. The story about her is told from the viewpoint of her inseparable companion, the analogue camera, which directly and simply reports on their shared travels and work, the motifs of Marija’s photography, and her feeling for people and spaces, which the camera sometimes shared with the artist, and at other times just longed for calm scenes that are easier to capture. This is a lyrically intoned, very subtle depiction of the artist’s life and work, filled with a vestige of nostalgia for the great age of analogue photography, but also with hope in its preservation. In addition, the author offers the young readers an easy-to-understand introduction to the basics of this art technique.(Adrian Pelc, ed)
Book #4896
Piccola con piccolo
13,00 €The little girl Piccola shows an unusual feeling for sounds. Imitating the chirping of birds, the crackling of fire, the sounds of the wind and everything else that surrounds her, Piccola amazes the listeners singing her little melodies. When she comes to a
music school and old Professore starts teaching her to play the piccolo, the smallest girl with the smallest flute becomes ‘Piccola con piccolo’; her Bird Music becomes a huge success and she is invited to perform all over the world. Piccola con piccolo
is the first picture book written by Bruno Mezić. Creating a likable character of the little girl Piccola,
telling about her adventures in sound, and skillfully playing with Italian words, the author introduces young readers to the terminology of classical music. Illustrations by the young visual artist and designer Klasja Habjan imaginatively and playfully follow the text and bring to life the original little heroine and her music.
Book #3705
The Female World of the British Raj
17,00 €Biljana Romić, born in 1960, is a Croatian indologist and cultural editor. She gained her Master of Arts title in 1997 in Zagreb, with a study of Bharati Mukherjee and postcolonial migrant faiths. She has ever since actively been researching and writing about postcolonialism and the notion of the Other. Her extensive study The women’s world of British India was written after she spent several years studying diaries and letters written by “memsahibs”. Her work is not simply a historical overview of their lives and roles during colonialism, it puts colonial history, literature and the notion of the “Other” in a contemporary critical context; Romić analyses over one hundred and fifty sources, including Indrani Sen, Amandeep Kaur, Kumari Jayawardena and Shashi Tharoor. When reading about the British colonial venture in India, we mostly encounter works that have been written from the male perspective of conquests and regimen – but colonial women have, almost from the very beginning, been a part of this venture. Biljana Romić’s book brings us the voices of these women and their lives. They journeyed into the unknown, often not prepared for the adversities of a different climate and the social roles they were going to find themselves in. They went into the unknown as wives, governesses, teachers, as young women in search of a husband; sometimes as entrepreneurs, missionaries, adventurers. Many stayed within the expected roles given by the British colonial community, but some of them showed that it is possible to overcome the limitations of their era, class and gender when it comes to their relation to India and Indians. Biljana Romić talks about the so-called “little history”, the one that appears on the margins of big historical events – and without which it is impossible to gain a complete picture of a time that has passed.
Heroes and Dragons on the Decline
13,00 €Imagination and a certain freedom in his relation to language as well as an authentic poetical experience characterize Josip Čekolj’s first poetry collection. In four parts – four zeals – the lyrical voice of this young and talented author celebrates the novelty of his first worlds, from the home region, both in a concrete and a symbolic form, to the world of family and first loves. The magic of these poems mostly arises from the peculiar shifts from real to surreal, from bright images that depict an underlying emotion. The author builds his space of words, a space that is built from moments he has experienced. This space is often related to motives that originate in nature and in traditional culture, but it is consistently original, full of surprises and freshness.
Love, Lovest, Loverest
15,60 €There are three love stories in this book – three stories about love that is unattainable because of the very nature of those who fall in love. But that doesn’t make these feelings less powerful. The buoy and the anchor are waiting for a storm that will bring them together, even though buoys are made for floating and anchors for anchoring. The sun is trying to shine less intensely so it could love the snow longer, while the snow enjoys basking in the sunshine, even though it melts in love. And the sea and the sky are the greatest of all, eternal lovers, always mirroring each other, coming together and moving apart…
The stories that Igor Rajki tells in this picture book – actually, he “mumbles them as he walks” – are original, peculiarly humorous, and full of linguistic invention, with a number of made-up words, collected in the end in a little author’s dictionary. The illustrator Nikolina Žabčić responds to the playfulness of the text with equal artistic freedom.
Book #4905
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