Beletrina, 2011, 257 pages
30-pages excerpt available in English
Translation rights sold: Croatia (V.B.Z.), Serbia (Zavet)
A novel of complex structure that portrays one family’s extensive saga, following four generations through a period of hundred years, scattered throughout Europe.
Families have always been the best place for those small everyday hells that, behind a carefully preserved facade of the apparent normality and harmlessness, mercilessly and in all sorts of ways elixate their members down to nothing. In the novel the narrator – a member of the family but not in the center of happening – tries to pull together the pieces of several generations of his family history. This is triggered by an event that might seem harmless: the visit of an aunt with whom no one had been in touch for years; yet this visit makes the whole construction of the family go completely off the rails, especially the world of the grandfather and his daughter (the aunt). The main story centers on these two characters. The novel is a sort of a family album whereas its pictures show horrible things. It is also a chronicle of a family of three generations and as such delves into the historical context of the 20th century as well as it reflects various intimate relationships between the individuals within the family. The grandfather served in four different armies, flags and uniforms, and once the atrocities of the war come to an end he thinks a peaceful life waits ahead, but this is only the beginning of the whole array of problems, challenges and tribulations brought to the surface by love on the intimate family level, as the writer introduces in a very refined way Grandpa’s five daughters into the story. His first daughter proves that love can build you a house, but the ‘golden cage’ that was supposed to provide a roof over the heads of three generations, soon starts turning into a ,hellish trap’. Suddenly tolerability, so plain and so human in every respect, rather than shear luck, repeatedly shown to be an illusion, becomes the skill required to survive.
The novel consists of inner elements that rotate and intertwine constantly. It is as a long poem in prose dealing with issues that we usually keep silent. Aleš Čar wrote a great novel.
Dario Grgić | Croatian Radio
A fearful, monumental work of Aleš Čar.
Gabriela Babnik | Airbeletrina
Stylistic charmingly written novel, straightforwardly, words stoning.
Grega Kališnik | Nedelo
Beletrina, 2003, 168 pages
Two stories translated in English
Three stories translated in German
One story translated in Spanish
Translation rights sold: Poland (Wojciech Domachowski), Croatia (Fraktura)
Out of order is a shorty story collection with modern anti-heroes who are striving for safety and luck being disabled to achieve it by their tragic everyday life and the remains of transition. Very critical to characters. passiveness and addictions, Čar puts to question the status of young middle class population, their role in the urban city life as well as their resignation and unfulfilled emotional relationships.
Beletrina, 2007, 190 pages
Translation rights sold: Poland (Biblioteka Balkan), Serbia (Rende), Czech Republic (Duhapress), Macedonia (Magor)
In short story collection Made in Slovenia Aleš Čar did something that is very difficult to do – he caught Zeitgeist on three printed pages (which is the length of the stories), he caught daily routines into fiction starting with public news accessible to everyone and finishing with private worlds and little stories with an emphasis on the individuals and their destiny.
