• Publisher: Beletrina
• 308 pages
• Original title: Kurji pastir

Feri Lainšček was born on 5 October 1959 to Terezija (Trejzka) and Štefan (Pištek) in the village of Dolenci in Goričko, a hilly part of Prekmurje, the far- thest and most special corner of Slovenia, near the Hungarian border. The house he was born in was the poorest around and the child was unexpected; at 39 and 44 his mother and father were considered well on their way to old age. The boy’s sister, who was called Little Trejzka, was 18 by the time of his birth and had already left the house. The child didn’t even have a name for a while and in the end he was named by the local priest when the father went to register him for baptism. Local people said that nothing more than a herder of hens could become of the boy as there were no cattle

or other animals in the household. Despite knowing that the boy grew into something much more, we still worry for him and fear for his life as we read.

A Herder of Hens is a book a writer writes only once in his lifetime. By using the method of Jung’s active imagination the author returns to his childhood and transforms it into a unique creative process. But more than autofiction, the novel has a tight-knit structure and pace that builds a suspenseful and electrifying portrait of a singular childhood that at first seems to offer the protagonist almost no chance of and at life. Of particular value are also metaphorical and symbolic lan- guage, which, intertwined with folk traditions and mythical archetypes, form a sweeping and powerful work of literature.