Unterstadt
The novel Unterstadt tells the story of an urban family of German origin living in Osijek from the end of the nineteenth till the end of the twentieth century. It is narrated through the portrayal of the destinies of four generations of women – a great grandmother, a grandmother, mother, and a daughter – their shattered illusions, the education of their children, the historical events that brutally lash out at them.Ivana Šojat creates a world rich in detail and nuance, all her characters, both major and minor, are expressive and suggestive, abundant in virtues and flaws, complex and multidimensional, as life itself is. By depicting a clash of generations through the female characters of a family, the author creates a world in which, often due to bizarre strokes of fate or wrongly selected life-cards, both horrible and beautiful events occur. Yet the central theme, running through all the generations and all the characters, is that of hiding away from the past, fleeing from it, concealing it, which sooner or later leads to traumas and misunderstandings.Unterstadt is a book about a family and a town, written in the manner of the best and greatest modernist novels. Through the history of one family, it speaks of the twentieth century in a multiethnic town, of dictatorships, of wrongly selected sides, of fate which one can hardly defy. Unterstadt reveals the richness of Ivana Šojat’s narrative talent, and it is thus not surprising that she has emerged as one of the most interesting writers of contemporary Croatian prose.Ivana Šojat was born in Osijek in 1971. She spent several years in Belgium, where she obtained a university degree in French language and literature. She is a novelist, a poet, an essayist and a literary translator. Her works include collections of poetry Hiperbole (Hyperboles, 2000), Uznesenja (Ascensions, 2003), Utvare (Phantoms, 2005) and Sofija plaštevima mete samoću (Sofija Sweeps Up Loneliness With Her Capes, 2009), collections of short stories Kao pas (Like a Dog, 2006), Mjesečari (Sleepwalkers, 2008), Ruke Azazelove (Azazel’s Hands, 2011) and Emet i druge priče (Emet and Other Stories), novels Šamšiel (Shamshiel, 2002), Unterstadt (2009), Ničiji sinovi (Nobody’s Sons, 2012), Jom Kipur (Yom Kippur, 2014), Ljudi ne znaju šutjeti (People Don’t Know How to Keep Their Mouth Shut, 2016) and Ezan (The Adhan, 2018). For her novel Unterstadt (2009) she received Vladimir Nazor literary award, Ksaver Šandor Gjalski literary award for the best novel, Fran Galović award, Josip Kozarac and Ivan Kozarac awards for the book of the year.
