Daddy Issues
DINO PEŠUT
Croatia’s Groundbreaking Gay Novel.
“I receive the news of my father’s grave illness with almost complete indifference. I’m finding it mildly annoying, like road construction… He called me just briefly; he doesn’t want to bother me too much. I’m at work right now. I hang up. I’m furious at my father’s potentially terminal illness. I work at the reception desk of an okay hotel… My job is not demanding—often it’s boring, but it keeps my curiosity alive. I especially like working the evening shifts and figuring out who is sleeping with whom. At night, I get to read a lot. Secretly, I write poetry.”
$24.00
Thus begins Daddy Issues, Dino Pešut’s novel about the generation born in 1990s Croatia. These young adults are sensitive, well-educated, and, for the most part, worse off than their parents, with little perspective aside from emigration. This heartwarming story of familial dysfunction tackles head-on the challenges of friendship, independence, sex and sexuality, mortality, and class. Pešut’s second novel confirms him as a powerful voice of his generation, an author who perfectly captures the moment he lives in, and Vladislav Beronja’s translation brings it to life in English with empathy and humor.
My father has been reaching out to me more and more frequently in the last couple of years… Each missed call would leave me with a small pang of guilt. The same remorse I feel now because I can’t seem to call him and ask how he’s doing. I’m a bad son of a bad father.
Published as part of the Growing Together project, co-financed by the European Union.
Translated, from the Croatian, by Vladislav Beronja.
Distributed in association with The Irish Pages Press
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“Pešut comes out without compromise. He talks about the impossibility of relating to one’s parents and the search for a new kind of family, and in so doing, writes a universal novel about the struggle of an individual to find their place not only in the new world but also within their own family’s history.”
Monika Herceg, Moderna vremena
“Throughout the novel, Pešut deconstructs the industrialized ‘equal opportunity society’ with meticulous precision and a hefty dose of irony…”
Vid Barić, Jutarnji list
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About The Author
Dino Pešut was born in Sisak, Croatia in 1990. He graduated Dramaturgy in Screenwriting and Playwrighting from Academy of Drama Art in Zagreb. He works as a dramaturge in various theatre in Croatia and abroad. As a dramatist, he debuted 2012 with the play The pressures of my generation, which was selected for the FORUM OF YOUNG EUROPEAN PLAYWRIGHTS within Theaterbiennale Wiesbaden New plays from Europe. His play Pret-posljednja panda ili statika (Pen-ultimate Panda or Static) won the national prize Marin Držić by the Ministry of Culture and was premiered in ZKM Zagreb, 2015. The same play was invited to participate in program Stueckemarkt within the framework of the Festival Theatertreffen in Berlinu in 2016. He won the national prize Marin Držić also for the plays L.U.Z.E.R.I., Veliki hotel Bezdan (Big Hotel Bezdan), Stela, poplava (Stela, Flood) and Olimpia stadion (trilogy), and is most awarded young playwright in Croatia.
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| Weight | 395 g |
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| Dimensions | 210 × 148 × 20 mm |