• Publisher: *cf.
• 228 pages
• Author: Zoran Hočevar
• Original title: Šolen z brega

Zoran Hočevar wrote Mr. Shoeman from Breg, for which he won the Kresnik Award for the best Slovenian novel in 1998, as a satirical allegory of Slovenia just before the break up of Yugoslavia. The story develops in the streets of Ljubljana in the last few days before Slovenian independence. The protagonist, Janez Kolenc-Žani, also known as Shoeman is meticulously constructed, even his language has no lapses: it is always the same, philistine, filled with half-intellectual loan words, innocent slurs, and precision. He is hypercorrect, orderly, clean. We get the impression that the writer pokes slight fun at his main character, but Janez Kolenc, with his love for shoes and books, hatred towards cats, his air of a harmless, reserved gentleman of a certain age, with a slightly naïve language of a semi-intellectual, is seductively endearing for the reader. Who wouldn’t identify with an Everyman who insists on tiny quirks simply because he’s afraid to take action? And despite his almost naïve frankness, he holds back a lot, because everyone is essentially quite aware of their own trauma and knows what they might make out of themselves if it were risk-free.

About the author

Zoran Hočevar

Zoran Hočevar (1944) studied first at the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade and then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana. His works are set in the present, he narrates stories of ordinary people, using colloquial language that includes current witticisms and profanities, and loves irony. His novel Mr. Shoeman from Breg won the 1998 Kresnik Award and his tragedy I’ll Kill Ya! the 2011 Grum Award for the best new Slovenian play.