Boris Kolar : The Oratorio of Scented Time • The Martyrdom of Aunt Martha • Willows

Dolg opis

When the mundane becomes fantastic, the uncanny feels oddly familiar. Boris Kolar’s short stories challenge the boundaries of human experience, confined by our perceptions and tainted by memory, amplifying the limits of our grasp in order to subvert them and – quite literally – go deeper. For Kolar’s protagonists this can lead to bizarre turns, marvelous mishaps, and funny encounters at moments when worlds collide. Perhaps one could finally experience the true nature of being a tree or use one’s sense of smell to uncover a mistery frozen in time. On the other hand, though, perhaps one should strive not to, and simply admire the possibilities.

Boris Kolar, PhD, is an ecologist and ecotoxicologist, an international expert on environmental risks. He has written columns for a daily news­paper and published the occasional text in Slovenian literary magazines, but he is most well-known for his humorous novel Iqball Hotel set in Africa, which tells the story of a tourist who slowly turns into the proprietor of a hotel in the middle of nowhere. The novel was shortlisted for the Kresnik Award for best novel in 2009. More than a decade later, in 2020, Goga published his book of short stories Trinajst (Thirteen). In 2021, he published his second novel Potopimo Islandijo! (Let’s Sink Iceland!). His writings are in touch with nature, bright and, above all, extremely humorous.