No-Signal Area: A Novel

Robert Perisic

may 2020 · Seven Stories Press

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Oleg and Nikola—hustlers, entrepreneurs, ambassadors of capitalism—have come to the town of N to build an obsolete turbine, never mind why. Enlisting the help of former engineer Sobotka, they reopen the old turbine factory, preaching the gospel of “self-organization” and bringing new life to the depressed post-communist town. But as the project spins out of control, Oleg and Nikola find themselves increasingly entangled with the locals, for whom this return to past prosperity brings bitter reckonings and reunions. At once a savage sendup of our current political moment and a rueful elegy for what might have been, this sprawling novel blends tragedy and comedy in its portrayal of ordinary people wondering where it all went wrong, and whether it could have gone any other way.

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ROBERT PERIŠIĆ’s novel Our Man in Iraq garnered rave reviews from the New Yorker, the Times Literary Supplement, and NPR’s “All Things Considered,” among others, and was praised as “a must-read” by the Guardian. Perišić has published award-winning nonfiction, fiction, poetry, and criticism in his native Croatia, where both Our Man in Iraq and No-Signal Area were best sellers. He began writing short stories in the 1990s with a clear anti-war sentiment, during the days following the devastating war that tore apart the former Yugoslavia, and is now considered to be one of the most important writers and literary critics in the region. Perišić lives in Zagreb. 

ELLEN ELIAS-BURSAĆ is a translator of fiction and nonfiction from Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian. She has taught in the Harvard University Slavic Department and is a contributing editor to the online journal Asymptote. She lives in Boston.