FAREWELL GIFT

This novel offers us the gift of bitter-sweet memories of coming of age in the shrinking country that once was Yugoslavia. The protagonist's painful saying good-bye to his missing brother, to his hometown and to all the things which formed his identity in never-erasable past time represents the inevitable preparation for his move to his new home on a different continent. Vladimir Tasić's masterfully woven story takes the reader on a journey which will eventually end with a peaceful coming to terms with oneself. The cycles of love and loss that build the package of each and every life find an exquisite voice in this masterfully written prose.

"The subject of the book is actually a brilliant exercise in the fine art of digression, of portraying comically sad and sadly comic reflections on life, death and Chinese people who fall from their bikes smiling."
Liberation

"Just like a piece of music, to which it constantly refers, the architecture of the novel revolves around anecdote and myth, around the personal and the universal."
L’ Humanité