Anđeo nestajanja

1941: occupation. 1945: liberation. 1991: break-up. The city of Zagreb, a two-storey apartment building in its city centre, and the fate of its inhabitants are at the core of Slobodan Šnajder’s epic novel, which takes upon itself to recount the history of Yugoslavia, perhaps even of the entire Balkan region: on the upper floor resides professor Gavranić, an homme de lettres and philanthropist, below him, Madame Blavatsky, in whose salon sometimes supernatural things unfold, and in the basement, Mile, a Mussolini-trained Ustashi of the first hour. Above them all, in the attic, is the humble abode of foundling Anđa Berilo, who works as a maid. She will become a partisan and, together with the house itself, one of the main narrators of a century of history.