Summary:
"Girls, be good" is an omnibus novel that consists of twenty short stories connected by a single framing narrative: just after the fall of the Berlin wall, foreign investors feel good about the investment climate in Eastern Europe and decide to open a huge toy factory in ex-Yugoslavia, where they are going to produce a hit range of toys designed for girls: small, plush lemurs called Aya, that will be sold all over the world.
We then follow the little lemurs as they bear witness to physical and mental abuse, inhumane treatment and molestation of young girls around the world. The main character, the young woman who writes these stories, has a father who has sold her soul to the devil, just so that he could obtain two decades of life outside the law and without fear of punishment. The young woman herself, meanwhile, has a pact with the devil of her own.
About the Author:
Bojan Babi? was born in Belgrade in 1977. He studied at the Department of Serbian and World Literature at the Faculty of Philology, in Belgrade, and later gained a Master's degree from the same department. Before commencing his studies in Serbian and World Literature, he was a singer in a little-known heavy metal/grunge band. Over the last ten years, he has worked as a prolific and acclaimed copywriter and associate creative director at a big advertising agency, winning numerous awards.
As one critic wrote of Babic's novel Inhuman comedy, realistic prose seems too feeble and naïve to describe the unbelievable reality that is happening to us, hence Babic uses surreal tactics to talk about it. If one had to come up with a name for it, it would be called dystopic surreal realism, in which he always adds a pinch of dark humor, irony and an oneiric atmosphere. Critics have compared his prose to that of Don DeLillo, Boris Vian and Roberto Bolanjo.
Babic won an award from the Borislav Peki? Foundation in 2011. His novel Illegal Parnassus, published in 2013, was shortlisted for the biggest national literary award, the NIN prize; it was also shortlisted for the biggest regional award (for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and Serbia) - the Meša Selimovi? prize. He has had prose, poetry and essays published in a large number of magazines and anthologies in Serbia and abroad.
Reviews:
"[T]he author Bojan Babic, although this may sound biased and exaggerated, is one of the most refreshing voices in our [Serbian] literature (the literature of the four-name language we all understand), at least in the past ten years. What Babic has accomplished with his novels "IlegalniParnas" [Illegal Parnassus] and "Devojcice, budite dobre" [Girls, be Good] <...> is most certainly the kind of step forward that we have not seen in a while." Djordje Krajišnik, Oslobodjenje
Review copies are available upon request.
Title: Girls, be Good
Author: Bojan Babi?
Translator: Nataša Miljkovi?
Publisher: Glagoslav Publications
Language: English
ISBN: 9781911414261
Extent: 156 pages
Format: paperback, hardback, e-book
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