Rain in India, summer in Berlin contains 18 short stories that bear witness to the author’s ambition to approach the topic of travel in a very special, thematic motif and stylistic way. She does this by grafting her authorial self into a dozen of her fictional alter egos, into her restless companions of completely different life experiences, united by the fact that, in order to live, they have to travel: before us a gallery of nomads is dissolved, made up of ordinary tourists, wanderers, self-willed exiles, pilgrims, all kinds of adventurers, up to professional travelers. With them, the author will travel around the globe – starting from her domicile Zagreb and our emblematic toponyms of Marija Bistrica and Vukovar (from which it is evident that she does not shy away from a hint of autobiography), via Ohrid or the small Czech town of Telč to metropolises such as Berlin and London (where she currently lives), all the way to the exotic Moroccan Marrakesh and Tunisia… and even further, to the very end of the world – to India, the tranquility of the roads and the narrative refuge that clearly fascinates the author (so the plot of even three stories is set in the auspices of Indian culture, so different from hers).
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
