Irena Tot's Experiment

In her debut novel, Korana Serdarević explores the story of the female protagonist Irena Tot, whose coatings she will gradually unfold like the onion layers, giving Irena the different form, physically and mentally. As an intensely self-aware individual in her thirties, the uncompromising heroine puts her life decisions into question and refuses to consent to the traditional path anticipated for a woman in the Croatian patriarchal society, determined to perform an experiment – to change herself and to challenge her outlines. She abandoned the life in rural environment with a sweet man, a nice house, children and a dog, because she felt captured like a roe deer in an animal trap. Instead, in the midst of the identity crisis she makes sure the renowned ground below her feet slips away, constantly putting herself in unfamiliar situations, like getting involved with lesbian relationship or renting a room to a complete stranger. Irena opts for brutal honesty with herself rather than settlement, the more difficult pathway that brings her unemployment and loneliness, but that will also lead to genuine fulfilment.

Korana Serdarević explores the more complicated options and their consequences. Subtly yet profoundly unwraps the crucial, very often silent intimate questions familiar to anybody – who are we and where are we going? How to deal with loss and grief? How not to hide behind lukewarm, fusty day-to-day life because we are afraid of what the change may bring? The author looks into the complex existential questions that arise in every conscious human being, that are easier to repress than to deal with. With her simple, truthful and very straight-forward writing, Korana Serdarević persuades every reader to contemplate life itself.