Translated from German by Dragoslav Dedović
The translation was authorized and supplemented and updated for the Bosnian edition by Saša Stanišić.
Saša Stanišić (Višegrad, 1978) is one of the most prominent contemporary German writers. He has received numerous awards and recognitions for his stories and novels, including the Leipzig Book Fair Prize for "On the Eve of the Festival" and the German Literature Prize for "Origin". His works have been translated into more than thirty languages. He lives and works in Hamburg.
"Origin" by Saša Stanišić is an autobiographical masterpiece. "Origin" is a book about the first great coincidence in our biography: being born somewhere. And what follows.
"Origins" is a book about Sasha's homelands, those in memory and imagination. A book about language, moonlight, the relay of youth... and many summers. In the summer when his grandfather stepped on his grandmother's leg so badly while they were dancing that Sasha was almost not even born. In the summer when he almost drowned. A summer in which the federal government did not close the borders and which was similar to the summer when he fled across numerous borders to Germany as a fourteen-year-old.
"Origin" is Sasha's farewell to his grandmother, who suffers from dementia. As he collects memories, she loses hers. "Origins" is sad because for him origins have to do with what we can no longer have.
In "Origin", the dead and snakes speak, and Sasha's great-aunt Zagorka goes to the Soviet Union to become a cosmonaut. "Origin" also includes: a raftsman, a brakeman, a professor of Marxism who has forgotten Marx. A Bosnian policeman who wants to be bribed. A Wehrmacht soldier who loves milk. An elementary school for three students. Nationalism. The Jugovićs. Tito. Eichendorff. Saša Stanišić.
"Origin" is proof that Saša Stanišić is one of the great contemporary writers of our time.