3.5
The Hotel Tito
ByPublisher Description
The most powerful autobiographical novel written about the Yugoslav wars. A timely and deeply accessible book that speaks to what it is like to be displaced by war.
Hotel Tito is an award-winning autobiographical novel of the Serbo-Croatian War. Author Ivana Bodrožić was born in the Croatian town of Vukovar, just across the Danube from Serbia. In the fall of 1991, Vukovar was besieged by the Yugoslav People's Army for eighty-seven days. When the army broke the siege, people came up out of the basements where they'd been sheltering from bombardment; women and children were allowed out of the besieged city, but the army bused 400 men from the hospital to a farm on the outskirts where soldiers and Serbian paramilitaries massacred them. Bodrožić's father was among those taken and murdered.
In Hotel Tito, after fleeing the war zone their town has become, the mother and two children are housed along with other displaced persons at a former communist school in the village of Kumrovec (the birthplace of Josip Tito). For years they share a single room just large enough for their three beds, waiting to hear whether the narrator's father survived and when they'll be granted an apartment of their own.
In the meantime life goes on for the teenage protagonist, first loves bloom and burn quickly, new friendships are acquired and lost, new truths emerge, and new emotions. But she never loses her shy, insightful voice, nor her self-deprecating sense of humor. Hotel Tito is a sensitive and forthright coming of age novel in a time of atrocity and loss.
Hotel Tito is an award-winning autobiographical novel of the Serbo-Croatian War. Author Ivana Bodrožić was born in the Croatian town of Vukovar, just across the Danube from Serbia. In the fall of 1991, Vukovar was besieged by the Yugoslav People's Army for eighty-seven days. When the army broke the siege, people came up out of the basements where they'd been sheltering from bombardment; women and children were allowed out of the besieged city, but the army bused 400 men from the hospital to a farm on the outskirts where soldiers and Serbian paramilitaries massacred them. Bodrožić's father was among those taken and murdered.
In Hotel Tito, after fleeing the war zone their town has become, the mother and two children are housed along with other displaced persons at a former communist school in the village of Kumrovec (the birthplace of Josip Tito). For years they share a single room just large enough for their three beds, waiting to hear whether the narrator's father survived and when they'll be granted an apartment of their own.
In the meantime life goes on for the teenage protagonist, first loves bloom and burn quickly, new friendships are acquired and lost, new truths emerge, and new emotions. But she never loses her shy, insightful voice, nor her self-deprecating sense of humor. Hotel Tito is a sensitive and forthright coming of age novel in a time of atrocity and loss.
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About Ivana Bodrozic
IVANA BODROŽIĆ was born in Vukovar in 1982 where she lived until the Yugoslav wars started in 1991 when she then moved to Kumrovec where she stayed with her family at a hotel for displaced persons. She studied at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb. In 2005, she published her first poetry collection, entitled Prvi korak u tamu (The First Step into Darkness). Her first novel Hotel Zagorje (Hotel Tito) was published in 2010, receiving high praise from both critics and audiences and becoming a Croatian bestseller. She has since published her second poetry collection Prijelaz za divlje životinje (A Crossing for Wild Animals) and a short story collection 100% pamuk (100% Cotton), which has also won a regional award. Her most recent novel, the political thriller Hole, has sparked controversy and curiosity among Croatian readers.
ELLEN ELIAS-BURSAĆ is a translator of fiction and non-fiction from Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian. Her translation of David Albahari's novel Götz and Meyer won the 2006 ALTA National Translation Award. She taught for ten years in the Harvard University Slavic Department, worked as a language reviser at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, and is a contributing editor to the online journal Asymptote. Her book Translating Evidence and Interpreting Testimony at a War Crimes Tribunal was given the Mary Zirin Prize in 2015.
ELLEN ELIAS-BURSAĆ is a translator of fiction and non-fiction from Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian. Her translation of David Albahari's novel Götz and Meyer won the 2006 ALTA National Translation Award. She taught for ten years in the Harvard University Slavic Department, worked as a language reviser at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, and is a contributing editor to the online journal Asymptote. Her book Translating Evidence and Interpreting Testimony at a War Crimes Tribunal was given the Mary Zirin Prize in 2015.
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