Farewell, Cowboy

'Farewell, Cowboy' is a tough yet poetic novel by one of Croatia's best known writers. The story is rich in local colour and sentiment, following the main character, Dada, who returns to her home town on the Adriatic coast in order to unravel the mystery of her brother Daniel's death. Daniel, young, smart and popular, threw himself under a train in mysterious circumstances a few years earlier. In her search for clues, Dada meets an array of eccentric characters and succumbs to the charms of the young gigolo Angelo, who is taking part in a film shooting on the nearby `prairie'. Slowly and painfully she discovers all there is to know about her brother's death, and how Angelo was caught up in it.In her debut novel, Savičević playfully transposes the genre of a traditional Western drama to the contemporary world, challenging the omnipotent heroes of childhood and questioning what constitutes heroism today. The shabby suburbs of her seaside hometown provide the perfect backdrop for this tale of loss and redemption, redolent of transient glamour and unrealised small-town dreams.

"Savicevic’s prose, which is always relaxed and descriptive, and sustained with conversational ease, becomes increasingly beautiful in moments of high drama....The humour and sheer anarchy of the action combined with the comic exasperation, unforgettable characters and Dada’s wry acceptance of the way life happens to be, make this subversively appealing novel all the more profound; even, unexpectedly, beautiful." Eileen Battersby, The Irish Times; "Dazzling, funny and deadly serious, this perfectly pitched novel about the legacy of the Yugoslav war heralds the arrival of an exciting new European voice.....Savičević has a rare ability to speak of the deadly serious with a hedonistic lightness that lures you into a spirit of abandon, only to go on to deliver breathtaking blows of insight." Kapka Kassabova, The Guardian

Olja Savicevic is one of the best Croatian contemporary authors and a representative of the so called `lost generation’. Politically and socially engaged, Olja’s work has been included in a number of Croatian anthologies and international selections,. Her writing has been translated into German, Czech, Italian, Spanish, Slovenian, French, English, Slovak, Macedonian, Polish, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Romanian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Albanian and the Zulu language. Her short stories collection To Make a Dog Laugh won the prize for best author under thirty-five awarded jointly by Vijenac. Her collection of poems Mamasafari and Other Things was short-listed for the 'Kiklop Award for Best Collection of 2012', awarded annually by the Pula Book Fair. Her best-selling novel, Farewell, Cowboy, achieved great success in the region, and was adapted into a stage play. The book was translated by Celia Hawkesworth and published by Istros Books in April, 2015. Olja also writes for children and for the theatre.