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The Death of the Little Match Girl By Zoran Feric translated from the Croatian by Tomislav Kuzmanovic
ISBN-13: 978-0-9754444-5-0
ISBN-10: 0-9754444-5-x
LCCN: 2007932337
$16.95 US
Set in a fairytale-like atmosphere on the Adriatic island of Rab in the late summer of 1992, The Death of the Little Match Girl begins with the tragic scene of a little girl's funeral only to transform into the investigation of the murder of a Romanian transvestite prostitute nicknamed "the Little Match Girl." The thunder of artillery in the nearby Velebit Mountains permeates the atmosphere of this novel, filling it with the paranoia, insecurity and fear of war, and bending the idyll out of all shape. The investigation of the Match Girl's murder leads not only to the discovery of the murderer, but also to a strange world of secrets, illnesses-physical and psychological-and deviant behaviors among the island's upstanding inhabitants. It is a microcosm loaded with creepy settings, bizarre exchanges, dark humor and sarcasm, which one can't help but see as the direct consequence of the war raging nearby. Bodies sawed into pieces, exorcisms by Franciscan friars, corpse chaperones, the atrocities of war, catalogues of psychiatric ailments, pedophilia, homophobia, xenophobia, perverse love affairs, raw brutality, the Romanian secret police, radioactive watches that cause galloping leukemia, all variety of cancers consuming the inhabitants of this isolated place. The novel ends up being not so much a murder mystery as a horrifying and bizarre fusion of detective story, crime novel, political thriller, and grotesque fiction. In short-Balkan krimic.
Born in Zagreb, Croatia in 1961, Zoran Feric is the author of three novels and two collections of short stories. He is among the most widely read contemporary Croatian prose writers. His work has received numerous prizes, including the Ksaver Šandor Gjalski Prize in 2000 and the Jutarnji List Award for the Best work of prose fiction in 2001. He lives in Zagreb.
Original in Croatian
Smrt djevojcice
sa žigicama
2002
German translation
Der Tod des Mädchens mit den Schwefelhölzchen
2004