Ivor Kruljac is a young Zagreb poet and graduate journalist (who worked with TCN in 2021), best known for his slam poetry. So far, he has published three collections of poems in digital form; “Nebulae” (2017), “Psychedelia” (2018), and “Intellectual Circulations” and is one of the authors represented in the poetry collection “Where Were You in 2020?: Verses Under a Mask”.
He published the first collection of prose stories this year, Grotesque Incidents. It is a collection that contains a series of short stories on various topics, but all written in the grotesque writing style, just as its title dictates. This stands out both in the work and in the style of writing. Some of the stories have a not so simple task of entertaining the reader, while others have an even more difficult one – to shed light on social phenomena and, as the author says, “metaphysical dilemmas.”
Disturbing events at the Zagreb Archaeological Museum. A dissatisfied shoemaker with a new job. A doctor with unusual methods of vaccination. A debate on the importance of information during a bombing. A student’s head punctured in the classroom. A native dissatisfied with the violence of his tribe. A man who wants to be miserable to make it easier to die. These are just a few plots, some previously published, some unpublished, in the first collection of prose stories.
Themes also extend through various fiction genres, so we find those in the form of science fiction, horror, crime, those that mix genres or do not belong to any of them. The grotesque is realized in everyday phenomena, even those that not everyone dares to write about, such as (still taboo in our country), sex, and violence. However, this is precisely what makes this collection tempting – not shying away from painting ugly pictures, exciting pictures, instructive pictures, intriguing pictures to talk about the individual, the world, ourselves, and the author. Isn’t that the purpose of art?
It is a book that could intrigue fans of Stephen King, Agatha Christie, W.S Burrough, or perhaps Guillaume Apollinaire!
The collection Grotesque Incidents was published by Redak and can be ordered HERE.
Source: Knjizevost, Webknjizara
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