Longlisted for Deutscher Buchpreis 2017
Literary Fiction
Debut
„This captivating novel delivers an apt topography of our conflict-rich present“ Katja Gasser, 3sat Kulturzeit
Intense and often troubling, Phantoms is a deeply satisfying read.
Phantoms
Phantome
Roman
1992, the Republic of Yugoslavia is falling apart. Ethnic cleansings are starting to happen across the region - the first harbingers of the Bosnian War. Young Anisa is fleeing her home Sarajevo for Vienna, leaving behind her father and the life as she knew it. Her love Jovan, a Bosnian Serb, has been drafted to the army. She doesn’t get the chance to say goodbye. Thirty years later, her daughter Sara, together with her Graffiti sprayer boyfriend, embarks on a roundtrip to visit her mother’s birth country. Tracing her roots, she discovers the land whose history has torn apart her family.
Skilfully collaging fact and fiction, Robert Prosser unearths the buried remnants of a war that has permanently shaped modern Europe while the atrocities have remained largely unaccounted for. He pays tribute to a whole generation of survivors and their children who weren’t given any room to come to terms with what was irreversibly lost.
Prosser captivates with a sharp and witty tone, a voice that breaks with the familiar composition of historical and contemporary storyline. It gives an edge to what would have been otherwise a heart-breaking family story and draws the tragedies of the past into the present.
An often forgotten chapter of recent European history brought to light in this engaging literary novel.
Auf der Longlist des Deutschen Buchpreises 2017
Das Panorama des Jugoslawienkriegs in Phantome spiegelt die Problematik der aktuellen Flüchtlingskrise
Robert Prosser schildert intensiv ein fast vergessenes Kapitel der jüngeren Geschichte: Der Jugoslawienkrieg, der die letzte große innereuropäische Flüchtlingswelle in den 1990ern auslöste, dessen drastische Verbrechen bis heute nicht aufgearbeitet sind und weit in die Generation der Kinder der Geflüchteten nachwirken.
Anisa flüchtet 1992 aus Sarajewo nach Wien. In den beginnenden ethnischen Säuberungen hat sie ihren Vater zurückgelassen – und wird ihn nie wiedersehen. Auch von ihrem Freund Jovan, einem bosnischen Serben, der zum Militärdienst eingezogen wurde, konnte sie sich nicht verabschieden. Jahrzehnte später reist Anisas Tochter Sara auf den Spuren ihrer Mutter nach Bosnien-Herzegowina.
Robert Prosser is an Austrian writer and poet. He studied Comparative Literature and Cultural Anthropology. He spent several years in Asia, the Middle East and Great Britain. Over the years he has received several prizes and scholarships. His novel Phantome was longlisted for the Deutscher Buchpreis 2017. He lives in Vienna.
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