The novel In between follows the migrant experience of a young married couple from Zagreb in the English industrial city of Birmingham in the period from 2011 to 2022. Marko, an incomplete economics student, who leaves to pay off Swiss franc loan, at first works there as a construction worker, and Sandra soon joins him, carried away by dreams of drinking tea and the English lifestyle, but the reality is completely different because, as a teacher, she cannot find job in her field, so she accepts a position at the bus station counter. The novel follows their emotional and quite practical life between Birmingham and Zagreb, the dilemma between staying there and returning home, their maturation followed by breaking prejudices against foreigners and fitting into the British way of life, but also by the increasingly strong realization that Zagreb is becoming a foreign city to them. In this splitting and dissolution of identity, not only that Marko and Sandra change as people, but also their official status in the two countries changes, and their relationship goes through all kinds of trials. The author questions how the same person can be an emigrant in one’s own country and an immigrant in another’s and how these terms allow us to easily put people in a drawer without even listening to their stories.
Kristina Gavran writes short stories, novels, and theatre plays. Her play ‘Ready’ was awarded first prize Marin Drzic by Croatian Ministry of Culture and has premiered in z/k/m theatre in Zagreb. She also writes plays for children which have been awarded and produced in Croatian theatres and by Croatian National Radio.
Dipsut published Kristina’s first book in 2016; Rain in India, Summer in Berlin collects short stories around the theme of traveling and migration. The Palisander Guitar was her first novel, published in 2018; it was in the finals of the T-portal award and got the prestigious ‘Mirko Kovac’ award. The short story Signature won the first prize of the journal Večernji list. Kristina Gavran’s latest novel In Between (2022) was published in Disput and focuses on young people and migration. Her first play written in English was Pepper and Honey produced by Notnow Collective in 2019 and supported by Arts Council England. Kristina currently lives in Cheltenham, England, and works on the project “Birth Stories” about birth stories as part of the CIRCE European Fellowship program.
More selected prose and play translated into English read here: Relations
