Summary
Whether writing the legend of the Persian ice princess Turandot or leaving the main characters to the cold scalpel of literary dissection, Emina Smailbegović narrates masterfully. Arranging the chapters of this short novel in two lines - the contemporary one, which follows four young artists in Italy, and the historical one, in which a love-art drama takes place in Venice at the beginning of the 19th century, the author presents a solid, dynamic read to the audience and critics. Although the plot mainly follows the lives of artists, with inevitable autobiographical parts, the novel is nevertheless devoid of superfluous essays, which in contemporary prose often cover up artisanal clumsiness.
In good literature - such as this novel represents - everything begins and ends with language skills; just as a piece of ice is essentially a shaped volume of water, so the most complex novel is only a skilfully recognized and polished "piece" of language.
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