- Publisher: *cf.
- 258 pages
- Author: Gašper Kralj
- Original title: Škrbine
Gliding through inner and outer spaces and observing them carefully, recording them in sketches, notes, brief descriptions, bullet points, details, and croquis, this incessant search for orientation and balance within the unreliable streams of thoughts, creating a special personal topography through move(ment)s, leaving (out) minuscule traces, drawing points of orientation, at least virtual holds… these are the elements that constitute the characters and the (interpersonal) relationships in this novel (as well). Space is what gives the characters in Stubs the sense of ostensible security and is at the same time the connective tissue of the story. The (present) time which belongs to these people is extremely precarious and – disoriented. All the missed, gone, lost time of Kralj’s protagonists, however, through the elliptical polyphony, through ellipses and silences, is finally grounded and fills space through contrapuntal densification (like in a musical fugue).
Gašper Kralj
Gašper Kralj (1973) is a social anthropologist, translator and award-winning writer. He spent several years in Catalonia, where he translated Spanish-speaking authors (Javier Cercas, Eduardo Galeano, Ernesto Sábato, Carlos G. Villa) and worked on his debut novel Expiry Date (→ see page 37), which earned him a nomination for the best literary debut and the Kresnik Award shortlist. His second novel Stubs (→ see page 36) won the 2021 Cankar Award for the best original literary work of the previous year. Stubs was also shortlisted for the European Union Prize for Literature (EUPL) and the Kresnik Award. He is also a member of the Slovenian writers’ delegation that will be presented in October 2023 at Frankfurter Buchmesse 2023.
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