• Publisher: Beletrina
• 330 pages
• Author: Jela Krečič
• Original title: Knjiga drugih

Following her hugely popular debut, None Like Her, Jela Krečič returns with The Book of Others: a novel dedicated to the books that nobody reads. At the centre of it is just such a book; nobody knows what it is about or who wrote it, yet it affects the lives of numerous characters.

The fates of the novel’s individual protagonists, residents of Ljubljana from various generations and backgrounds, intertwine around a mysterious book that they pass on to each other, with the narrative following the character who has the book at any given moment. In the budding love story of Tine, a student, and Ana, an actress, the book plays an important role as a physical object of connection. In another story, dedicated to Heda, a

young lecturer at the university, the book is the reason Heda meets an older woman, Veronika, and their accidental meet- ing grows into a very real friendship. At the same time, Heda begins corresponding with an acquaintance, Ariel, and their letters soon become intimate and more gradually, erotic. The book also marks the lives of the Kaprič family where the fa- ther’s redundancy almost leads to a breakdown of family ties. The novel, written with humour, ends with the book eventual- ly returning to its rightful owner – only to reveal that he does not recognise it either.

About the author

Jela Krečič

Jela Krečič Žižek (1979) is a Slovenian journalist, columnist and philosopher. She writes for the largest national daily Delo, where she notably published an exclusive interview with Julian As- sange in 2013. Her philosophical research focuses on films, TV series and aesthetics, and she has conducted several studies on these topics. She has also co-edited a number of anthologies on contemporary TV series and on German Amer- ican film director Ernst Lubitsch. One of her essays was published in the English anthology Lubitsch Can’t Wait (Columbia University Press, 2014). None Like Her (Ni druge, 2015), her literary debut, sold out quickly after publication and was very well received in the media. Her second novel The Book of Others (Knjiga drugih) was published in 2018.