Mama Leone

Written in the shadow of the Yugoslav wars, yet never eclipsed by them, Mama Leone is a delightful cycle of interconnected stories by one of Central Europe’s most dazzling contemporary storytellers. Miljenko Jergovic leads us from a bittersweet world of precocious childhood wonder and hilarious invention, where the seduction of a well-told lie is worth more than a thousand prosaic truths, out into fractured worlds bleary-eyed from the unmagnificence of growing up. Yet for every familial betrayal and diminished expectation, every love and home(land) irretrievably lost, every terror and worst fear realized, Jergovic’s characters never surrender the promise of redemption being but a lone kiss or winning bingo card away. As readers we wander the book’s rhapsodic literary rooms, and as a myriad of unforgettable human voices call out to us, startled, across oceans and continents, we recognize them as our own. ""Jergovic is an enormously talented storyteller."--Aleksandar Hemon. A masterful collection of stories that draws the reader into a boy's episodic, profoundly personal recounting of his war-torn homeland and childhood. Dazzling, rhapsodic, and above all compassionate, these linked stories, deeply rooted in place and history, break down stereotypes and humanize a complex cultural conflict. Miljenko Jergovic, born in 1966, is a poet, novelist, and journalist. He was awarded the Ivan Goran Kovacic Award and the Mak Dizdar Award for Warsaw Observatory and the Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize for Sarajevo Marlboro (Archipelago Books, 2003), now in its third printing."-- Provided by publisher "A masterful novel that draws the reader into a boy's episodic, profoundly personal recounting of his war-torn homeland and childhood. Dazzling, rhapsodic, and above all humane, these linked stories, deeply rooted in place and history, break down stereotypes and humanize a complex cultural conflict"-- Provided by publisher