Gašić Nada: Devet života gospođe Adele

Nada Gašić: Nine Lives of Mrs. Adele

Nada Gašić's third novel, Nine Lives of Mrs. Adele (Spring in Zagreb 2020) consists of ten chapters that function as separate stories or episodes of one series, one fairy tale about two evils, and one glass egg. Mrs. Adela is a character you will not forget, just like the spring in Zagreb in 2020, when the corona virus and Zgzem, the frustrated earthquake, visited it. But what does this mean for the life of Mrs. Adele, a solidly wealthy widow from the wider city center, who is preparing to celebrate her eightieth birthday and bid with her will, in order not to buy the attention and affection of her relatives? It's impossible to tell it in a nutshell, so let's just mention that Adela fiercely protects her life and routines, the old normal, which she probably doesn't have much left, in contrast to loneliness. In this novel, Nada Gašić shows mastery by combining fairy tales, grotesque, spy realism, comedy and fantasy, reaching into the already forgotten lexical treasury and writing hyperrealistic dialogues that can be heard and clearly outline the agrammer characters and their dramas. And the floor plan of the city that swayed under everyone's feet. Because of all this, a warning should be issued, because this novel will pull you into itself and remove all distance, this is a shocking and contagious novel.

Nada Gašić (Maribor, 1950) graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb with a degree in Yugoslav studies and sociology. She worked as a lecturer at universities in Leningrad/St. Petersburg and Prague, where she defended her doctoral dissertation on Czech-Croatian cultural ties from the beginning of modern times. She collaborated on the creation of the first Anić Dictionary of the Croatian language. Using specific Zagreb jargon, she translated Hašek's The Good Soldier Švejk and Moša's drama of the same title. As an associate of Zagreb publishers, she edited about fifty books. At the age of fifty-seven, she published her first novel, Mirna ulica, drvored, for which she was awarded the Slavić Award for the best debut novel, and in 2010 she published the novel Water, Paučina, which was awarded the City of Zagreb Award and the Vladimir Nazor Award. She collaborated with the Third Program of Croatian Radio in the show Praskozor. She published several stories, one of which was included in the Zagreb Noir collection. Her novels have been translated into Italian, Ukrainian, Macedonian, and the chapters of this book into Slovenian. He lives in Zagreb in one of the tree-lined streets frightened by the earthquake.