In Croatian, lovostaj means "closed season"—a period when hunting is forbidden, allowing animals a rare moment of respite, free from the fear of being hunted. In Closed Season, Monika Herceg masterfully reclaims this term, transforming it into a powerful metaphor for the survival of women in a world that too often preys upon them.

This award-winning poetry collection confronts the brutal realities of violence, trauma, and endurance, weaving visceral imagery with profound lyricism. Herceg’s poems do not merely recount suffering; they carve out spaces of defiance, solidarity, and, ultimately, a language of survival.

Now brought to life in audio, Closed Season takes on a new dimension—an intimate, immersive experience where voice becomes the conduit for these haunting yet fiercely resilient verses. The edition features Herceg herself, reading select poems in their original Croatian, interwoven with the English translation, offering listeners a rare, bilingual encounter with her striking poetic voice. This is poetry that demands to be heard.

"Monika Herceg's poetry is like a wound through which the world shines – painful, true, saturated with memory and anger, but also with hope for new stories. Her poems, arising from the experience of war, exile, and violence, transcend the boundaries of time and geography to stand up for those who never had a voice. This is poetry that is not afraid to speak of responsibility – for Europe, for women, for those excluded by systems and ideologies. Herceg writes about a history that no longer belongs to the victors, and about beauty that cannot fit into the confines we previously knew." --Olga Tokarczuk

Monika Herceg (born 1990 in Sisak, Croatia) is an award-winning Croatian poet, playwright, screenwriter, editor, and activist. She studied physics at the University of Rijeka and is a member of the editorial board of Poezija, a poetry journal published by the Croatian Writers’ Society.

Her literary work has been widely recognized and awarded. Her debut poetry collection, Početne koordinate (Initial Coordinates), won the prestigious Goran Award for Young Poets in 2017 and was published in 2018. It also received the Kvirin Award for Young Poets, the Fran Galović Award for the best work on themes of homeland and identity, the Slavić Award for the best debut poetry book, and the international Bridges of Struga Award.

Her second collection, Lovostaj (Closed Season, 2019), won the Na vrh jezika Award for the best unpublished poetry manuscript in 2018. Her third collection, Vrijeme prije jezika (The Time Before Language, 2020), received the Zvonko Milković Award.

On an international level, Monika Herceg became the youngest recipient of the prestigious Polish European Poet of Freedom Award in 2024 for Lovostaj, translated into Polish by Aleksandra Wojtaszek. That same year, she was also awarded the CEI Award for Young Writers at the Vilenica International Literary Festival in Slovenia.

Her work has been translated into over fifteen languages and published in renowned literary magazines. In addition to poetry, she writes for the stage, and her play Gdje se kupuju nježnosti (Where Tenderness Is Bought) premiered at the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb in 2021.