Summary
Mirko Demić: Heavenly Divanhana
A novel about borders - physical and metaphysical, mental and imaginary.
Adjutants, advisers, interpreters, secretaries and servants exchange memories in this divanhana. They are armed with the privilege of outliving the heroes of their stories. Hence the insatiable need to notice the unimportant, to invent the incomprehensible, to create the unexpected and dilute the rough.
In 1699, after long negotiations between Austria and the Ottoman Empire, peace was concluded in Sremski Karlovci. In this specific novel about the frontier and its curse, five men and one woman tell the story side by side. Whistleblowers are direct witnesses and participants of events, and at the same time victims of the turbulent times in which they live. The confessional tone of their stories is seductive and attractive. For some, the limit is pain and trouble, for others, profitable work, and for others, fate. Some withdraw it, others correct it, others do everything to make it meaningless and waste it. What they have in common is that they all consider this border to be temporary.
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