Balkan Library

"An Attempt to Forget", Miro Gavran

© Miro Gavran, 1996
Translator: Alexandra Liven
First edition, 2005. Croatian. 62 pages. Price 2,5 euro

An Attempt to Forget – a novel about the first problems of life teenagers encounter. The letters of the main character to a friend of his abroad reveal the first love quivers and even the surprise that it can both cast you down in despair and elevate you to the unlimited heights of the shared happiness. The notes in the diary of the female character are evidence of the hard path she walks through from the cruel tragedy she experienced to the rebirth, generated by the power of sincere and unselfish love.

A new student arrives to a school in Zagreb. With pain she hides from her classmates her tragic experience in her hometown – she was brutally raped. A member of her class is the idol of all the schoolgirls, but he truly and fully falls in love with the mysterious, quiet “alien”. His letters to his friend in Germany and her confessions in her diary reveal the amazing, wonderful power of the first pure love capable of healing the wounds of the past and bringing happiness to a boy and girl.