DIVAN · Genres
Realism
26 published works. Explore books by literary genre and discover new works.
At the Well
At the Well — Laza Lazarević. A flask hangs from a plum tree for any passer-by to drink from. This small act of hospitality introduces a household so large that the narrator compares it to an army. Its work is shared, its welcome elaborate, and its hierarchy almost unquestioned. Into that order comes Anoka, a young bride accustomed to having her own way.
Laza LazarevićShort storyeBookBakonja, Friar Brne
Bakonja, Friar Brne — Simo Matavulj. Before Bakonja arrives at the monastery, he already knows what makes a friar’s life desirable: a good horse, clean linen, a warm bed, meat, wine and the respect of everyone he meets. His relatives have another reason for sending him there. The Jerković family has supplied generations of friars, and the next appointment promises to keep both honour and material advantage within the right branch of the family.
Simo MatavuljNoveleBookBig Phil
Big Phil — Simo Matavulj. A hungry Dalmatian peasant refuses to abandon his faith in exchange for relief. Matavulj links poverty and personal dignity with a painful moment of compassion for the man’s donkey.
Simo MatavuljShort storyeBook · AudiobookDead Capital
In Dead Capital, a household argument can turn without warning into a discussion of wages, education, or the uses of land. Josip Kozarac brings these subjects together because, for his characters, they are already inseparable. A father's money pays for his son's studies; a young woman's marriage changes the balance of two households; a field left uncultivated becomes a question about the society around it.
Josip KozaracNoveleBook · AudiobookFather Ćira and Father Spira
Father Ćira and Father Spira — Stevan Sremac. A village with two comfortable priests ought to have room enough for both. In Father Ćira and Father Spira, prosperity is precisely what makes rivalry so inventive. There is food to exchange, wine to praise, furniture to compare and a daughter in each household whose future can be discussed without anyone admitting to a plan.
Stevan SremacNoveleBookHe Knows Everything!
He Knows Everything! — Laza Lazarević. The boy who frightens his schoolmates fears only his elder brother. From that small contradiction Lazarević builds a story about affection that has trouble speaking its own name. Vučko's recklessness is almost a public institution; Vidak's authority seems equally settled. Yet the narrator's cheerful recollections keep disturbing the labels he puts on people.
Laza LazarevićShort storyeBookIn the Cells
In the Cells — Svetozar Ćorović. Behind monastery walls, resentment and personal desires challenge the abbot’s authority. Ćorović portrays people whose hopes for freedom and affection collide with strict rules.
Svetozar ĆorovićNoveleBook · AudiobookIn the Night
In the Night — Borisav Stanković. In In the Night, the ordinary work of irrigating tobacco opens a space for everything Cveta tries to suppress. As she waits for the water, an encounter and a song restore the love that her social world would not allow. The field is more than a setting: the sound of a hoe, the thirst of the earth, moonlight and distant voices all enter into her remembering.
Borisav StankovićShort storyeBookInto the Mire
Into the Mire — Vjenceslav Novak. A prosperous student in Zagreb encounters talented young men struggling to afford food, rooms and education. Novak tests his conscience against the unfair distribution of support.
Vjenceslav NovakShort storyeBook · AudiobookIvko’s Slava
Ivko’s Slava — Stevan Sremac. A house prepared for one feast becomes the centre of a town that will not stop celebrating. Ivko the quilt-maker has saved his best food and drink for his slava, the annual observance of his family’s patron saint. He knows the duties of a good host and takes pride in meeting them. His friends know those duties too. The comedy begins when they discover how much can be demanded in the name of friendship, custom and one more glass.
Stevan SremacShort storyeBookJablan
Jablan — Petar Kočić. Lujo waits for tomorrow as if his whole world depends on it. His bull, Jablan, is to face the imperial bull Rudonja. Beginning with a child's tenderness towards an animal, the story follows his wavering fear and pride into the clamour of a public contest. The village at rest beneath the moon and the sudden crash of horns belong to the same mountain life.
Petar KočićShort storyeBook · AudiobookMy First Morning Service with Father
My First Morning Service with Father — Laza Lazarević. A son recalls the night his father's gambling brought the family to ruin. His mother's courage and tenderness restore hope as the church bells announce morning prayers. This complete English translation adapts character names while retaining the Serbian setting and customs.
Laza LazarevićShort storyeBookMy Friend Lovro
My Friend Lovro — August Šenoa. Rain cancels a country-house vintage party, and conversation settles into the safe topics of respectable company: politics, fruit trees, household work. A young widow refuses to be entertained. She is bored by Croatian stories, she says, because their little world produces only little events.
August ŠenoaShort storyeBook · AudiobookPoor Girl
Poor Girl — Simo Matavulj. A sailor returns to a Dalmatian island with a ring, unaware that the woman he loves has died. Matavulj quietly traces hidden affection, grief and a family’s continuing daily life.
Simo MatavuljShort storyeBook · AudiobookThe Alka Rider
The Alka Rider — Dinko Šimunović. In Dinko Šimunović’s Alkar, the landscape is no passive background to human events. Summer heat, blue haze, the rumble of hooves and the storm wind gradually acquire the force of feelings the characters find hard to express. The Cetina countryside appears peaceful, while its image of its own past is renewed each year in the alka tournament. The story follows what happens when that shared measure of heroism enters the most intimate relationships.
Dinko ŠimunovićShort storyeBookThe Last Stipančićs
The Last Stipančićs — Vjenceslav Novak. The room in which The Last Stipančićs opens is almost sealed against the world. The air is too warm, the furniture too large, and the light too weak. Beyond the windows the bora roars through Senj; inside, a mother watches her daughter and tries to keep suffering at bay. Before the novel tells us how this family once lived, it makes us feel what its remaining life costs.
Vjenceslav NovakNoveleBookThe Marriage of Peter Carrington
The Marriage of Peter Carrington — Svetozar Ćorović. Peter Carrington’s friends send him on a search for a wife, leading him into one comic entanglement after another. Ćorović brings vanity, friendship and small-town life into the marriage quest.
Svetozar ĆorovićNoveleBook · AudiobookThe People Will Gild It All
The People Will Gild It All — Laza Lazarević. Two men wait for an overdue steamboat on the Sava. Blagoje the coppersmith expects his son home from the war; Captain Tanasije Jeličić is waiting for his wife. For each, the boat’s arrival promises an answer to questions he can scarcely bear any longer. Conversation, silence, memories and mistaken sounds fill the hours.
Laza LazarevićShort storyeBook · AudiobookThe Rainbow
The Rainbow — Dinko Šimunović. The first sentence of Duga places a town between a river and a wall of cliffs. Almost at once that landscape becomes a measure of freedom. While the adults of Čardaci sleep through the heat and their daughters wait indoors, the boys have the river, the meadows and the sun. Ten-year-old Srna hears that larger world through an open window. Her parents call their restrictions care; her body experiences them as confinement.
Dinko ŠimunovićShort storyeBookThe School Icon
The School Icon — Laza Lazarević. “Our village had a church, and the church had a priest.” From this deceptively simple beginning, Lazarević builds a world in which authority, affection and daily work seem inseparable. The priest belongs to everyone, and everyone belongs, in some measure, to him. When a daughter comes unexpectedly into his life, the village helps to raise her. Her future becomes its shared hope.
Laza LazarevićShort storyeBookThe Singer’s Easter
A singer can turn private sorrow into public pleasure, but what happens when the sorrow becomes too great to sing? In Pevačev Uskrs (The Singer’s Easter), Radoje Domanović follows Pera through the preparations for a holiday that other households can afford to celebrate. Lambs, new clothes, cakes and painted eggs are ordinary comforts to the people around him.
Radoje DomanovićShort storyeBook · AudiobookThe Village Schoolmistress
The Village Schoolmistress — Svetolik Ranković. Village teachers confront private hopes, loneliness and pressure from local authorities. Ranković combines their relationships with a critical portrait of provincial society.
Svetolik RankovićNoveleBook · AudiobookThe Wind
The Wind — Laza Lazarević. Janko lives comfortably with his mother and thinks of marriage as something that time and chance will arrange. A visit to the hospital where his friend Joca works brings him face to face with suffering he cannot readily explain away. Recognition, gratitude and desire begin to unsettle the language in which he understands his own life.
Laza LazarevićShort storyeBook · AudiobookThrough the Blizzard
Through the Blizzard — Petar Kočić. Relja and his nephew Vujo return from market with their cow unsold. Behind this small failure lies the loss of a household once full of people, livestock and standing in the world. As the road climbs towards the mountain, the story opens into a long recollection of prosperity and its collapse. Returning to the winter night means returning to the little life Relja still has left.
Petar KočićShort storyeBook · AudiobookWerther
Werther — Laza Lazarević. A spa is a place to recover one’s health, and an excellent place to lose one’s perspective. Lazarević begins by comparing a fashionable visit to the baths with a war: both demand preparation, waste money and end in negotiations at home. Among the officers, officials, card players and self-appointed experts stands Janko, a thirty-year-old man whose feelings still expect the world to behave like a novel.
Laza LazarevićShort storyeBookZona Zamfirova
Zona Zamfirova — Stevan Sremac. A song escapes from a silversmith's apprentice, a slap interrupts it, and the story has already begun to circulate. In Zona Zamfirova, very little belongs only to the people immediately concerned. A glance becomes a report, a family argument becomes public entertainment, and a young woman's reputation can be remade by neighbours who have seen nothing at all.
Stevan SremacNoveleBook · Audiobook