Initial Coordinates - Hardcover

by Marina Veverec (Translator), Monika Herceg (Author)

Initial Coordinates meditates on Monika Herceg's earliest childhood memories in a small rural village near Petrinja in central Croatia as war breaks out in the 1990s.

It can be read as a magical realist novel in verse, exploring the history of a family through financial hardships, domestic violence, animal abuse, and the overall decline of village life.

Drawing directly on Croatian mythology, this bold, unforgettable work mimics oral traditions, reflecting the people whose lives helped shape Herceg's voice and perspective, one very much rooted in the resilience of nature's rhythms.

Author Biography

Marina Veverec is a student of literary translation at the University of Zadar, Croatia. Her translations have appeared or are forthcoming in Denver Quarterly, Exchanges, Poetry International Web, Asymptote, Verseville, Harvard Review, and Words Without Borders.

Monika Herceg, born in 1990, is the author of three poetry collections, including the widely acclaimed Pocetne koordinate (Initial Coordinates, SKUD Ivan Goran Kovacic, 2018), Lovostaj (Closed Season, Jesenski i Turk, 2019), and Vrijeme prije jezika (The Time Before the Tongue, Fraktura, 2020). She has received six national prizes, most notably the Goran for Young Poets and the Fran Galovic Prize. English-language translations of her work have appeared in Denver Quarterly, Exchanges, Asymptote, Harvard Review, and Words Without Borders.