An urgent new novel about death, war, and memory from the highly acclaimed Croatian writer
In this breathtaking final work, Daša Drndic reaches new heights. Andreas Ban’s suicide attempt has failed. Though very ill, he still finds the will to tap on the glass of history to summon those imprisoned within. Mercilessly, he dissects society and his environment, shunning all favors as he goes after the evils and hidden secrets of our times. History remembers the names of the perpetrators, not the victims—Ban remembers and honors the lost. He travels from Rijeka to Zagreb, from Belgrade to Tirana, from Parisian avenues to Italian castles. Ghosts follow him wherever he goes: chess grandmasters who disappeared during WWII; the lost inhabitants of Latvia; war criminals who found work in the CIA and died peacefully in their beds. Ban’s family is with him too, those already dead and those with one foot in the grave. As if left with only a few pieces in a chess game, Andreas Ban—and Daša Drndic—play a stunning last match against Death.
Daša Drndic (1946-2018) wrote Trieste—"splendid, absorbing" (The New York Times)—shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize; Belladonna—"one of the strangest and strongest books" (TLS)— winner of the 2018 Warwick Prize; and EEG—"a masterpiece" (Joshua Cohen). She also wrote plays, criticism, radio plays, and documentaries. Celia Hawkesworth has translated The Museum of Unconditional Surrender by Dubravka Ugrešic, Belladonna by Daša Drndic—shortlisted for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize—and Omer Pasha Latas by the Nobel Prize–winner Ivo Andric.
