Melinda Nadj Abonji

Schildkrötensoldat

Melinda Nadj Abonji’s striking new novel combines lyrical prose with absorbing storytelling: another triumph for this award-winning author.
After an accident leaves Zoli with learning difficulties and epilepsy, he is unable to continue his apprenticeship as a baker, so his parents enlist the ‘useless’ young man in the army to fight in the Yugoslavian civil war in 1991. This alternative coming-of-age novel gives insight into young Zoli’s peculiar, yet witty and poetic way of thinking.
The reader observes Zoli’s struggle to fit in through his own eyes and those of his cousin Anna, who also struggles with mental health problems and understands Zoli better than his immediate family. After Zoli’s death Anna leaves her teaching job in Zurich on a whim to visit her old home. On the journey, she reminisces about Zoli and their childhood together, and tries to find answers about how and why he died. Through the voice of Anna, as she mourns the death of Zoli, Tortoise Soldier acquires an elegiac feel, celebrating Zoli’s approach to life and his character. Despite its brevity, «Tortoise Soldier» demands to be read slowly so that the reader can cherish the word-play and love of language conveyed by the author.
This is an extraordinary book distinguished by Nadj Abonji’s unique, expressive prose which insightfully conveys her protagonist’s particular way of perceiving and interacting with the world. «Tortoise Soldier» captures a whole life with poignant brevity.

(Recommended by New Books in German, 43/2018)

Translation of title: Tortoise Soldier

Suhrkamp, Berlin 2017

ISBN: 978-3-518-42759-0