Jung und Jung, 2021, 182 pages
Full German manuscript and English sample available
Translation rights sold: World English (Amazon Crossing), Croatia (Fraktura)
A harbour town on the Adriatic serves as a backdrop for dreams which some people use for business, others for films and a few to make their fortune.
Summer 1936. Split, the Riviera of the Adriatic coast on the other side of Italy, seems to enjoy its usual colorful hustle and bustle and frivolous ease. But now it’s more than peasants from surrounding villages, fishermen, and languid northerners taking the sun: Jews on the run, opponents of the Nazi regime, traffickers, and spies from all over the world flit among the ruins of Diocletian’s Palace. German film crews drawn by the spectacular views stoke suspicion and rumors, Italian and Croatian fascists and anti-fascists, officials from the distant Yugoslav capital and Freemasons, plot and quash political conspiracies among smiling waiters, children, and unflappable concierges. Gun-running, love stories and get-rich-quick schemes are interwoven with stops to eat and drink and swim. In one week, it all explodes. The beaches, cafés, and pubs are full, cruise liners and military ships lie alongside fishing boats – and then a dead body washes up at dawn. There are few leads, and they lead everywhere. Mario Bulat begins to investigate, but everyone already seems to know more than he does. The powerful industrialist Salvatore Torchio, a member of the culturally and financially strong Italian minority, feels his two sons and their foster brother slipping away from him because they like Mussolini, D’Annunzio, and Marinetti. But he will do whatever he needs to protect them from the grasp of the Yugoslav policemen. Some love affairs will fall apart, others look to the future. All the loose ends may be tied up at the novel’s end – but we are still far away from justice. On the eve of World War II, can there be a happy ending to a summer story?
The Mediterranean city of Split is as much of a protagonist as its citizens. Once the emperor Diocletian ruled the Roman Empire from here. The scents of Mediterranean delicacies still waft through the ancient walls of his palace. So do whispering, plots, uprisings, and irrepressible joy of being alive – in a new electric atmosphere of uncertainty that has gripped the entire ancient continent.
Split, aka Dreams and Backdrops is a dazzling kaleidoscope of Mediterranean life in an overheated era, a social novel rich in tones and colors about a world on the brink of disaster, for all the promises of progress and gleaming machines.