Transnational Literature Series: Celebration with Damir Karakaš and Ellen Elias-Bursać
The Transnational Literature Series presents a conversation between Damir Karakaš, author of Celebration (forthcoming from Two Lines Press), and translator Ellen Elias-Bursać to celebrate the English release of the novel. Zain Khalid will moderate the discussion.
This virtual event is free to attend but please consider purchasing Celebration from our bookstore partner, Brookline Booksmith. (opens in a new tab)Register via the button above to receive a Zoom link on the day of the event.
About Celebration
With Celebration, Croatian journalist and novelist Damir Karakaš relays an epic in village miniature: the story of a father, a son, a farm, a family dog, and a nation’s descent into fascism.
Mijo, a soldier in the Nazi-allied Ustaša force, has returned to his village at the end of the war. He’s hiding in a hole in the woods, watching as the soldiers who want him dead return again and again to his house, disturbing his wife and children at all hours of the day. If he can just wait long enough, he naively believes, the atrocities of the war and his own involvement in it will be forgotten, and he can have what he really wants: a quiet life farming his land with his family.
Celebration, translated by the incomparable Ellen Elias-Bursać, traces a dark path—from hapless individual to world-changing catastrophe—in search of a way to break the cycle of political violence.
About The Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith
The Transnational Literature Series focuses on stories of migration, the intersection of politics and literature, and works in translation and is supported by the independent bookstore Brookline Booksmith.
Damir Karakaš was born in 1967 in the village of Plašćica, in the Croatian region of Lika. He worked in Zagreb and Split as a journalist, reporting from the front lines of the war in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. From 2001 through 2007 he lived in Bordeaux and Paris, where he supported himself by playing the accordion. One of the most respected writers in Croatia and the former Yugoslavia, Karakaš is winner of prestigious domestic and international literary awards. He has published seven novels, three short story collections, and a travelog. His novels have been translated into ten languages, including the first translation of a work of Croatian literature into Arabic. A film based on Celebration four major awards (Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Male Lead, Best Cinematography) at the 2024 Pula Summer Film Festival. He is the father of three daughters and currently lives in Zagreb.
Ellen Elias-Bursac translates novels and non-fiction by Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian writers. ALTA’s National Translation Award was given to her translation of Albahari’s novel Götz and Meyer in 2006.
Zain Khalid, named a “5 Under 35” honoree by the National Book Foundation in 2024, is the author of the debut novel, Brother Alive. His writing has appeared in The Paris Review, The New Yorker, n+1, The Believer, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, and elsewhere. He is an associate editor at The Drift.