Belladonna

From the author of the highly acclaimed Trieste, a fierce novel about history, memory, and illness

Andreas Ban, a psychologist who does not psychologize anymore and a writer who no longer writes, lives alone in a coastal town in Croatia. He sifts through the remnants of his life—his research, books, photographs—remembering old lovers and friends, the events of WWII, and the breakup of Yugoslavia. Ban's memories of Belgrade, Amsterdam, and Toronto alternate with meditations on the mental faculties of rats, a depressed arctic fox, and the agelessness of lobsters. He tries to push the past away, to "land on a little island of time in which tomorrow does not exist, in which yesterday is buried." Drndic leafs through the horrors of history with a cold unflinching wit. "The past is riddled with holes," she writes. "Souvenirs can't help here."