Translated by Milivoj Popov
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The first edition of novel Bapa was published in 2016. The novel was shortlisted for three literary prizes in 2017: Vital Company’s Zlatni suncokret (Golden Sunflower), Laza Kostić Prize of the Novi Sad Book Fair, and the Book of the Year of the Literary Society of Vojvodina. It has been translated into Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian, and Macedonian. Simon Grabovac, the editor of the novel, has compiled a book Critics about Bapa which contains literary essays of numerous authors that had written extensively about this novel. The novel Bapa marks the beginning of Radovan Vlahović’s Banat saga, which has been updated with three sequel novels: 1934., Mučenici (The Martyrs) and Ljuba. To be continued…
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Branko was not easily scared, but he did have respect for order and hierarchy and would not stray off from a path once he sees that this path is a good, prosperous one. He was always like that: he would plow his land in a certain way one year, but decided to adopt a whole new method just a year later. He was well aware that the early bird catches the worm. That the countries come and go, but that the people always stay the same.
(excerpt from the novel)