• Publisher: ŠKUC
• Author: Jedrt Maležič
• Original title: Bojne barve

Jedrt Lapuh Maležič’s second book, Bojne barve (War Paint), is a collection of short stories that deals with various aspects of the struggles experienced by LGBT+ peo- ple living in heteronormative communities. Maležič’s characters – from individuals on the brink of self-revelatory discoveries and the establishment of firm identities, to closeted lesbians, adolescent non-binary brats, and self-loathing homophobes and ho- mosexuals – form a rainbow flag of people marked (often humorously) by their LGBT+ identities. The title War Paint signifies both the mask of (women’s) make-up and the attribute of emerging pride in newly found self-realization. Thus War Paint differs from the well-developed Slovenian LGBT+ body of prose literature by depicting the space between the intimate awareness of identity and the moment of recognition when it emerges in the open.

About the author

Jedrt Maležič

Jedrt Maležič (1979) is a writer and a literary trans- lator from English and French. Her first collection of short stories Težkomentalci (Heavymentals), published in 2016 and shortlisted for the best debut award, has opened and demystified the topic of stay- ing in a psychiatric hospital as a totalitarian institu- tion in the 21st century. The following book, Bojne barve (War Paint), shortlisted for the Novo Mesto Award, discusses the topic of several different LGBT entities and their troubles in coming out in a closed or hostile society. In 2018, she published her first novel Vija vaja ven (Eeny, meenie, mynie, moe), which tackles the subject of dangerous new age mentality and spiritual cults. Napol morilke (Almost Murderers, 2021) is her historic novel about women refugees in the mid-war period.