Fifty Cigarettes for Elena

Fifty Cigarettes for Elena, the latest novel by outstanding Croatian writer Marina Vujčić in its structure contains the chaos theory, the inaudible and imperceptible “butterfly effect” at the ordinary citizen and his everyday life level. The saying goes that a flap of butterfly wings in Beijing can cause a storm in Florida – but what can happen if a fifty year old man decides to mark his birthday by staying awake through entire twenty four hours, midnight to midnight, from the beginning to the end of his birthday and fulfill a bizarre vow to his dead twin sister by smoking fifty cigarettes in that time and keeping the fifty stubs?

The life of Oliver Radman, who made this decision, will not change in any way because of it. However, the night walk he undertakes in order to stay awake will influence the lives of three unknown people in a way Oliver could never think of and he will never become aware of it.

In the course of the plot development we will meet another three protagonists during these twenty-four hours that Oliver decided to spend awake defying his normal routine. The first one is Magdalena, a woman unable to sleep that night because the next day her husband must appear at the trial for robbing an exchange office. The fact that Oliver stopped at her window during his night stroll, spotting a sign of life at the dead of the night will change her initial decision to testify at the trial because of the fear she experiences thinking that this is a predator set out to harm her and her children. The second one is the young man Viktor, who, because of Oliver’s accidental presence in the street where the girl who spent part of the night at his place waits for a taxi, ends there half naked, without a key, unable to return to his apartment, although tomorrow is his first workday at a long-desired job and he must not be late under any circumstances. The third one is Greta, a depressive woman who thinks that her husband’s cheating on her is her greatest problem, but the way in which Oliver accidentally crossed her path that day will generate a situation in which other, much more serious traumas will surface.

Four parallel stories about these protagonists, seemingly totally unconnected, will take place through twenty four hours in a day at whose beginning Oliver made a decision that would influence the lives of the other three protagonists and characters connected with them. In spite of this they will remain strangers, although this day, for some maybe the rest of their lives, would look completely different had they not crossed each other’s path.

“Marina Vujčić has dived even deeper into small big people from whom she so passionately draws her inspiration and written a beautiful novel. Ultimately this is a novel that celebrates love, the biggest of all loves, the one we are (or are not) capable of presenting to ourselves.”

“On these pages you’ll find sentences so powerful and shattering that you will want to tattoo them on your body in order not to forget them.”

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