GORAN VOJNOVIĆ: THE FIG TREE (AUDIO BOOK)

AUDIO BOOKS

Reader: Benjamin Krnetić

Directed by: Alen Jelen

Duration: 13 h

Format: Digitalno

Code: 117046

EAN: 3838898117046

ZKP RTV Slovenija, Radio Slovenia and the Beletrina publishing house are releasing the audio book of Goran Vojnović's award-winning novel The Fig Tree. The audio book is narrated by an acclaimed actor and a member of SNG Drama Ljubljana Benjamin Krnetić and directed by Alen Jelen.

Benjamin Krnetić

About the book The Fig Tree

The Fig Tree is a novel composed of intertwining stories of Aleksandar and Jana, Vesna and Safet, and Jadran and Anja. As well as others. But mostly that of Jadran, a 30-something who tries to piece together the story of his family to better understand his own story. Because he cannot understand why Anja walked out of their life, he tries to understand the death, supposedly facilitated by a suspicious pill bottle, of his grandfather Aleksandar. He tries to understand the withdrawal of his grandmother Jana, the disintegration of her memories, and her retreat into oblivion and dementia. Jadran tries to understand the departure of his father Safet, his disappearance from Ljubljana in the first year of the war in the Balkans. And he tries to understand his mother Vesna, her bewildering resentment of his grandfather, her silent disappointment with his father.

The Fig Tree is a multigenerational family saga, a tour de force spanning three generations from mid-20th century through the turbulent times in the Balkans until present day. Vojnović is a master storyteller, and while fateful choices made by his characters are often dictated by historical realities of the turbulent times they live in, at its heart this is an intimate story of family, of relationships, of love, freedom and the choices we make.

Reviews

The release of Goran Vojnović’s third novel The Fig Tree is what we call a literary event – deservedly so? Absolutely! … The Fig Tree is one of the rare delicious fruits of contemporary Slovenian fiction.

- Delo

Has the praise pouring in for the novel even before its publication been deserved? Do we really have a new classic in the vein of Lojze Kovačič – with broad strokes, sharp details and surprising depths? It absolutely hasn’t been undeserved … The Fig Tree is without question one of the best Slovenian novels in recent years.

- Mladina

Goran Vojnović wrote a book about emotions. If his first novel was a gift to linguists in the form of 183 pages of material on sociolects, and his second novel was a gift to historians offering a fresh insight into Balkan war crimes and their legacy, his third novel is a guide to relationships for all those who have a place to call home.

- AirBeletrina

The Fig Tree is a multigenerational family saga that takes the reader from the not-so-distant history to present day. The fig tree in front of the house is the main character’s Proustian madeleine, and The Fig Tree is Vojnović’s most ambitious novel to date.

- Samo Rugelj, editor and publisher

The Fig Tree is an exquisitely rendered novel, it’s a big and satisfying read, and among others calls to mind Colum McCann’s TransAtlantic and Orhan Pamuk’s Silent House.

- Kon-teksti

One of the most important novels to come out in the Balkans in the last decade.

- Teofil Pančić, Serbian writer and literary critic

Vojnović filters the recent history of his homeland, the suspicion of outsiders, the racial and cultural tensions through the lens of one family’s experience (his background in film is evident in much of the novel). He explores a world where a name can be a threat or destroy a life. Memories can be destructive, as the Balkans wars proved. But they also sustain us. The Fig Tree is about identity – about what make us, what shapes us. Vojnović often withholds crucial strands of the narrative that reveal a character’s motivations. Safet’s abrupt departure and Aleksandar’s desire to work in Cairo are initially baffling. Together with Jadran, the reader has to untangle the threads in an attempt to find the answers. When Aleksandar returns to find his wife irretrievably changed, it is truly heart breaking. Vojnović’s portrait of Jana’s memory loss, from the perspective of the husband caring for her, is one of the most moving accounts of dementia I’ve ever read. This is a remarkable portrait of a country’s fragmentation and a family’s fracture.

- BookBlast

A consummate novel that explores its subject with depth and sensitivity. The Fig Tree is one of the best books of the year.

- The Irish Times

This is a story of people who shared so much and yet who quickly drifted so far, so fatally, apart. The Fig Tree is a moving, gripping novel of family, and national, division.

- Boyd Tonkin, The Art Desk

Goran Vojnović’s The Fig Tree (Figa, 2016) is a gentle, quiet, emotionally powerful novel concerned with memory, families and the stories we tell each other.

- Paul Scraton, Times Literary Supplement

About the author

Author and director Goran Vojnović (1980) exploded onto the Slovenian literary scene in 2008 with his debut novel Southern Scum Go Home! (Čefurji raus!). The novel became an instant bestseller – it became one of the best selling Slovenian novels in recent decades – and gained notoriety after police prosecuted Vojnović for defamation, for which the Director General of Slovenian Police later publicly apologised to the author and offered his resignation. The novel reaped all the major national literary awards, including the Kresnik Award for best novel of the year and the Prešeren Fund Award, Slovenia’s highest award for artistic achievement, has been reprinted numerous times, made into a theatre play and a movie (the latter was directed by the author himself) and translated into nine languages. His second novel, Yugoslavia, My Fatherland (Jugoslavija, moja dežela, 2012), also received the Kresnik Award, was made into a theatre play and translated into seventeen languages. His third novel, The Fig Tree (Figa), was published in 2016 and once again received the Kresnik Award. Vojnović is only the third person to ever receive three Kresnik Awards in its 27-year history; he is also the first and only writer to have received the award for each of his novels.

Goran Vojnović (foto: Mankica Kranjec)

Production data

Author: Goran Vojnović

Title: Figa

Duration: 13 hours

Narrated by: Benjamin Krnetić

Director: Alen Jelen

Recorded in the Studio 11 of Radio Slovenia in february, march 2021

Audio engineer: Mirta Berlan

Mastering: Radio Slovenija, Studio 15, Klemen Veber, Mikez Vjekoslav

Head od recording /producer: Nataša Zanuttini

Phonetician: Mateja Juričan

Proofreader: Emanuela Montanič

Publishing house ℗&© 2021 ZKP RTV Slovenia

Head of publishing house ZKP RTV Slovenia: Mojca Menart

In collaboration with:

Radio Slovenia – Program ARS

Editor in chief: Ingrid Kovač Brus

Editor of the editorial board for feature program : Alen Jelen