All the titles and epigraphs at the beginning of chapters and sections within chapters are from songs by the Yugoslav band Ekatarina Velika, also known as EKV. The band’s sound, themes, and feel are reminiscent of the Velvet Underground and Nirvana. They are one of the last Yugoslav bands before what had been Yugoslavia until 1990 broke up into eight successor states, so these songs represent a precious poetic document for Nora’s and Marko’s generation that was lost in the vortex of the war, displacement, emigration. Here are the songs, with their original titles, so interested readers can find them online:
“Hands”
“Forget This City”
“Someone’s Watching Us”
“The Real World around Me”
“Moving Toward”
“Years of Lead”
“We’re Sinking”
“Be Alone on the Street”
“Like It Used to Be”
“She and He and He and I”
“Money in Hands”
“Into Darkness We Run”
“Blue and Green”
“A Few Years”
“Circle”
“Time to Cleanse”
“Eyes the Color of Honey”
“Cold”
“The First and the Last Day”
“Garden”
“Hunger”
“People from the Cities”
“The Ghetto”
“Hey, Mama”
“Synchro”
“Just a Couple of Years for Us”
“You Are All My Pain”
“Dum dum”
“Platforms”
“Weary”
“Love”
“Boy from the Water”
“This is the Country for Us”
“Ruke”
“Zaboravi ovaj grad”
“Neko nas posmatra”
“Stvaran svet oko mene”
“Kad krenem ka”
“Olovne godine”
“Tonemo”
“Budi sam na ulici”
“Kao da je bilo nekad”
“Ona i on i on i ja”
“Novac u rukama”
“Bežimo u mrak”
“Modro i zeleno”
“Par godina za nas”
“Krug”
“Treba da se čisti”
“Oči boje meda”
“Hladan”
“Prvi i poslednji dan”
“Vrt”
“Glad”
“Ljudi iz gradova”
“Geto”
“Hej, Mama”
“Sinhro”
“Par godina za nas”
“Ti si sav moj bol”
“Dum dum”
“Platforme”
“Umorna”
“Ljubav”
“Dečak iz vode”
“Ovo je zemlja za nas”
Ellen Elias-Bursać
Cambridge, MA
About the Author
IVANA BODROŽIĆ was born in Vukovar, Croatia, in 1982, where she lived until the Yugoslav Wars started in 1991. That year her father disappeared while fighting for Croatian independence and she and the rest of her family moved to a refugee hotel in Kumrovec. In 2005, she published her first poetry collection, The First Step into Darkness, and in 2010 her acclaimed and bestselling first novel The Hotel Tito, which won three major awards in Croatia and the Prix Ulysse for Best Debut Novel in France. It was published by Seven Stories in 2017. Since then, she has released her second poetry collection, A Crossing for Wild Animals, and a short story collection, 100% Cotton. We Trade Our Night for Someone Else’s Day is her second novel and her first political thriller.
ELLEN ELIAS-BURSAĆ translates fiction and nonfiction from Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian. She has taught in the Harvard University Slavic Department and is a contributing editor to Asymptote. Her most recent translation for Seven Stories is Robert Perisic’s novel No-Signal Area. She lives in Boston.
