On Debut Novels feat. Leaf on a Bread Crust by Srdjan Valjarevic
We tend to believe that authors invest their best in their first-published precious. Well aware that the competition is tough and publishers are seeking an original idea behind impeccable writing, they are also looking for an authentic voice in their personal experience in the realities they are a part of or in their imagination.
The Magic of Debut Novels
Debut novels often come in two categories. One: a wishful I-want-to-be-a-published-author and I-want-to-write-a-bestseller. The other is unpretentious writing that transfers something of the sincerity and innocence of the author. The latter one also has that special something that brings a breath of freshness and new to the world of literature.
As if it is not enough that there is so much burden left behind the legacy of the 1990s for authors from former Yugoslavia, some literary works originating from that time remain under the radar of the reading public. Along came the second and the third book, but the first ones still seem to lack attention.
Michelle Tea wrote that the heartbreak of completing writing and publishing the first book is that the world expects you to write a second. Not everyone is Gabriel Garcia Marques, who wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude with the sole aim: to throw more light on his first-written novel – No One Writes to the Colonel.
In 1990, Milorad Pavic was the most read author in Yugoslavia, Orhan Pamuk published the Black Book, and Srdjan Valjarevic stepped into the world of letters and novels.
First Steps of Srdjan Valjarevic
Today, Srdjan Valjarevic is one of the most famous writers in contemporary Serbian literature. He is often referred to as a modern classic.
Every literary protagonist from his writings is an ordinary person who happens to have someone pouring their thoughts and feelings onto the white sheet of paper.
Leaf on a Bread Crust is Srdjan Valjarevic’s debut novel. It is a collection of pictures from childhood, youth, and young adult age. Valjarevic wrote it when he was only 22 years old, and yet it came to be a solid ground for all of his literary work.
“Jakob. That is my name.” The opening line of this novel discovers the protagonist’s name; it also announces that that name may be taken by choice, thus fictional, and the reader should be careful about taking things for granted with his storytelling. Especially when they find out that he, Jacob, calls all of his friends Emils and Oscars and girlfriends Lidyas.
Valjarevic’s characters are all people and no one in particular. Children from middle-class socialist families, youth with troublesome attitudes, school dropouts, car mechanics, copyists, nobody.
The author’s scenery is urban Belgrade, the old city center, with only a few exceptions when Jacob reaches Germany and the Dalmatian islands. Jacob is what will soon become the most known Belgrade literary walker, and Valjarevic will only continue to introduce him in his later novels.
So, Jacob wanders about the neighborhood and talks about his experiences or portrays the world, people and relationships the way he perceives them. He inhales the world around him and leaves Srdjan Valjarevic to write down whatever comes out as he exhales: childhood memories of family picnics and schooling, young adults’ experiences with first love, sex, drugs, jobs, travels, but also writing and reading books – you name it!
It is about time that someone wonders what this book is about and where the plot is. And one may be right to do so. But here is the thing: this writing is not about the doings and events. It is about the atmosphere of melancholy Valjarevic builds around its protagonists. He is a gentle portraitist who doesn’t take people for granted. He loves all people and his city and is a valuable listener and observer. What Srdjan Valjarevic is leaving on the paper is not letters and sentences but a nostalgic itinerary of Belgrade, magnificent in its size and history, but still with wet, dirty streets and ordinary people living their simple lives.
At the end of this novel, Jakob sits down behind the desk in his friend’s room and writes down his first novel. And it is how Leaf on a Bread Crust is born. Along with being a great writer.
Srdjan Valjarevic After the Leaf on a Bread Crust
Critics argue that Srdjan Valjarevic is writing autobiographical novels, and when he responds to it, he usually says that they may as well be fiction novels. Whether they are fiction or not remains to the reader’s conclusion and literary critic history.
And history is what happened afterward. Two years after Leaf on a Bread Crust, Valjarevic published a book of poetry called Jo Fraser and 49 poems, the novel People at the Table (1994) and Winter Diary (1995).
After the Winter Diary, Srdjan Valjarevic disappeared from the literary sky and the public life. As the quiet around him rose, his works became more and more popular.
When Srdjan Valjarevic published the Diary of Another Winter (2006) and the Como (2007), he became a literary star and an award-winning writer. He received the Biljana Jovanovic Award, Stevan Sremac Award, Gorki list Award, Culturecontact Literary Award, and Literary Club Jazzbina Award for the last of his novels.
The most intriguing fact about him is that he kept his personal life to himself, becoming a mysterious figure among Serbian writers. Yes, he was writing novels, poems, and columns, and yes – he accepts interviews here and there, but he remains one of the most secretive literary figures of our times.
The most intriguing fact about him is that he kept his personal life to himself, becoming a mysterious figure among Serbian writers. Yes, he was writing novels, poems, and columns, and yes – he accepts interviews here and there, but he remains one of the most secretive literary figures of our times.
After twelve years of silence, Srdjan Valjarevic published Fritz and Dobrila, a collection of short stories about an immigrant family returning to Serbia and trying to continue their lives where they stopped twenty years ago. His characters remain doing nothing, but Valjarevic manages to use their nothingness, sarcasm, black humor, and absurdness of life to depict Serbian society in the post-war and pandemic era. Again, the author is not here to deliver lessons that highlight values scattered away after the arrival or some new times.
The artist is here to provide a propper reminder of the nature of things, people, relationships, and existence, and what they are made from. Srdjan Valjarevic’s literature is here as a reminder: to slow down, stop multitasking, and take a long walk in the world around us. At the same time, we shouldn’t forget to take care of our worlds within. And somewhere, along the way, to make peace between the two.
Srdjan Valjarevic’s writings at YU-Biblioteka
A fan of slow-motion and long walks? Love to imagine vivid pictures behind simple words? Belgrade has always been an extraordinary and ordinary city where it is easy to walk and breathe? Enjoy reading unpretentious read? You will enjoy this novel!
If you engage in a single search at our website, you will find Srdjan Valjarevic’s award-winning novels Como, the Diary of Another Winter, and his latest work – Fritz and Dobrila. Click HERE to place your order.