WW2 crime mystery set in Canterbury, Kent (and London)
Ten Great Books set in SLOVENIA
9th December 2025
Ten great books set in Slovenia. Slovenia, often called the ‘green heart of Europe’, is a country renowned for its spectacular natural beauty and commitment to sustainability. This small nation offers an incredible diversity of landscapes, from the Julian Alps and the serene, emerald waters of Lake Bled (featuring its iconic island church) to the deep limestone caves of Postojna and the short, scenic Adriatic coastline.
The capital, Ljubljana is only an hour’s drive from Austria, Croatia, or Italy – and two hours from Hungary. It is a charming city with a pedestrianised centre, dominated by a medieval castle and the dragon-adorned Triple Bridge. Slovenia is a paradise for outdoor enthusiasts, offering hiking, skiing, and rafting. Its blend of Slavic, Germanic, and Mediterranean influences creates a unique, welcoming culture.
Veronika Decides to Die by Paul Coelho
A novel from internationally acclaimed author Paulo Coelho – a dramatic story of love, life and death that shows us all why every second of our existence is a choice we all make between living and dying.
Veronika has everything she could wish for. She is young and pretty, has plenty of boyfriends, a steady job, a loving family. Yet she is not happy; something is lacking in her life, and one morning she decides to die. She takes an overdose of sleeping pills, only to wake up some time later in the local hospital. There she is told that her heart is damaged and she has only a few days to live.
The story follows Veronika through these intense days as to her surprise she finds herself experiencing feelings she has never really felt before. Against all odds she finds herself falling in love and even wanting to live again…
A Ballad for Metka Krašovec by Tomaž Šalamon
Tomaž Šalamun was one of the most influential and prolific poets in Central Europe over the past few decades. Thanks to the translation of his work, he also received wide international acclaim. A number of volumes of his poetry have been published in English, yet A Ballad for Metka Krašovec, originally published in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in 1981 at the mid-point of Šalamun’s career, is considered to be seminal in his oeuvre, not least for the influence it has had on younger poets both in his home country and abroad. The first time a complete single volume of Šalamun’s poetry was published in English translation, it is characterized by often striking imagery and a sexual turmoil that is pervasive, offering readers a unique opportunity to glimpse the author at a particular stage in his life and creative development. A Ballad for Metka Krašovec ranges from the incantatory and gnomic to reflections on Šalamun’s lovers, family, and country to narrative-style recollections of stays in Mexico and the United States.
Angels Beneath the Surface by Mitja Cander and Tom Priestly
With a per capita publishing rate of more that three times that of the United States, Slovenia has a long and storied literary history, from the legendary 9th-century Freising Manuscripts to postmodern masterpieces by Igor Bratoz. Continuing that tradition, Angels Beneath the Surface, the first collection of Slovene fiction to be published in English outside of Slovenia since 1994, offers a rich sampling of Slovene short stories. The thirteen tales here represent a wide array of voices and writing styles among the country’s renowned–and emergent–writers.
Written between 1990 and 2005, the selections in Angels Beneath the Surfacetogether comprise a vivid snapshot of Slovene literary consciousness at the turn of the millennium. These authors mine their culture for often startling insights in stories that range from wicked variations on fairy tales to dour romances to skewerings of the bureaucratic state.
Recent articles in The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, and other prominent publications attest to renewed interest in European literature in translation, and this collection is an incisive entry in the genre.
Crumbs by Miha Mazzini
Egon is an amoral but charismatic writer, living on the breadline in a grim, unnamed communist factory town in Slovenia prior to the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. With little evidence of his real literary ambitions, he makes ends meet by writing trashy romances under a pseudonym. When not searching out sex with as many women as possible, or slagging off the literary establishment, Egon is full of schemes to feed his pathological need for the ruinously expensive aftershave, Cartier pour L’Homme. Around him Egon has gathered a motley crew of friends and acquaintances, each of whom also has an equally obsessive, unattainable ambition. Poet is desperate to have his verse published in a leather bound volume, Ibro is in love with Ajsha, a factory girl to whom he cannot utter a single word, while Selim is convinced he’ll marry Nastassja Kinski, the world-famous actress. As Egon’s attempts to secure more perfume become ever more degenerate, his grip on his own identity loosens. The consequences are messy, as grim as they are hilarious, and allude to a nation undergoing radical change. Crumbs is not only a ribald, dirty realist satire – a modern European classic – but also a fascinating and utterly unique commentary on the pathology of self-determination. It’s publication in the months before Scotland votes on independence lends a surprising, alternative but authoritative perspective on the debate.
Death of a Prima Donna by Brina Svit
Who really was Lea Kralj? What was the truth about the beautiful, mysterious, passionate diva who was admired and fated throughout her career and who thrilled opera house audiences in cities across Europe? What was her relationship with her mother? And what really happened behind the curtains of her fourth-floor flat by the river, at the height of her fame, during her last summer in Ljubljana?
The only person who may be able to shed further light on the enigma of Lea Kralj is the narrator of this novel, a young Frenchman who first met her, in curious circumstances, in Madrid, and pursued her obsessively to Paris, Milan and eventually to Slovenia. Their relationship, neither sexual nor sycophantic, but one of mutual dependency, remains inexplicable to him. All he knows is that he will forever be dazzled by his memories of Lea Kralj’s voice, her radiating presence and her beauty, and by certain aspects of her life, as tragic and doomed as any of the stage heroines whose roles she sang.
As was apparent in her first novel to be translated into English, the internationally acclaimed Con Brio, Brina Svit writes with a rare poetic facility and rich musicality of expression. Her new novel is a stylistic tour de force which can only enhance her growing reputation.
Minuet for Guitar by Vitomil Zupan
Minuet for Guitar, a semi-autobiographical work, is structured around two separate narratives which weave together as the novel unfolds. One focuses on the young Jakob Bergant-Berk, an opinionated, rash, self-centered, womanizing resistance fighter who, like the author, was captured and tortured in an Italian concentration camp before escaping to rejoin the guerilla fight against the Axis occupiers. Accompanied by an inexperienced and ill-equipped band of ragtag partisans, Berk spends much of the novel attempting to procure a better rifle. The second plot line, set in Barcelona in 1973, portrays an older, mellowed Berk, as he makes the acquaintance of one Joseph Bitter, a German who, during the war, had fought with the occupation against the Slovenian insurgency. Berk and Bitter discuss history, politics, philosophy, and – when Bitter’s loving wife isn’t around – the war.
My Father’s Dreams by Evald Flisar
My Father’s Dreams is a controversial and shocking novel by Slovenia’s bestselling author Evald Flisar, and is regarded by many critics as his best. The book tells the story of fourteen-year-old Adam, the only son of a village doctor and his quiet wife, living in apparent rural harmony. But this is a topsy-turvy world of illusions and hopes, in which the author plays with the function of dreaming and story-telling to present the reader with an eccentric ‘bildungsroman’ in reverse. Spiced with unusual and original overtones of the grotesque, the history of an insidious deception is revealed, in which the unsuspecting son and his mother will be the apparent victims; and yet who can tell whether the gruesome end is reality or just another dream – This is a novel that can be read as an off-beat crime story, a psychological horror tale, a dream-like morality fable, or as a dark and ironic account of one man’s belief that his personality and his actions are two different things. It can also be read as a story about a boy who has been robbed of his childhood in the cruelest way. It is a book which has the force of myth: revealing the fundamentals without drawing any particular attention to them; an investigation into good and evil, and our inclination to be drawn to the latter.
Painted Hives by Jay Ebben
A fast-moving page turner in the YA category, this book will appeal to a wide spectrum of readers regardless of age. Travel to Slovenia and experience the intriguing adventure of Wilber Jansen: The strange and vivid dream that Wilber had as a young teenager about a vineyard with a cricket field in Slovenia has haunted him now for six years. It was always the same: Sasha, his best friend and first true love, was there in the vineyard waiting for him.
Wilber is now attending college where he, serendipitously, stumbles upon the opportunity to attend a week-long beekeeping class in Slovenia. This is his chance to go to Slovenia and find the vineyard from his dream. Maybe Sasha is actually waiting for him!
Arriving in the capital city Ljubljana, Wilber meets two people who astonishingly resemble characters from his dream…and with that, Wilber’s adventure begins. Freaked out by these and other encounters, and with only a week to find Sasha, Wilber enlists his beekeeper mentor and befriends an attractive and bubbly bank teller, Nina, to help him. They set off on a journey to discover the location of the vineyard with the cricket field…expecting to find Sasha.
The End. And Again by Dino Bauk
The End. And Again. offers a beguiling, imaginative reworking of the history of the independence of Slovenia and the breakdown of Yugoslavia.
Opening in early 1990s Ljubljana, the novel is told through the reminiscences of embittered bureaucrat Peter, corrupt manager Goran and eternal runaway Mary.
American missionary Mary once fell in love with Denis, a passionate rock musician, but their story was tragically cut short when she was sent away for violating the Mormon code and he was expelled from Slovenia and sent tumbling into the ravages of the Balkan war.
The main characters’ memories of the years when their interests revolved more around music and love than around the turbulent political situation that derailed their lives intersect with those of Denis, the only one of them to be enlisted. The lack of any meaningful resolution to their mutual story haunts them all, reflecting the fractured nature of the history of the region.
The Landscape of Loneliness by Brigita Orel
To find herself, Nina must first unravel her past.
After eight years abroad, twenty-nine-year-old Nina returns home to Slovenia to attend to her ill father. Plagued by painful childhood memories, poor health, and a broken heart, she struggles to reconnect with her father. When she discovers her birth certificate, she realises her parents were not who they claimed to be. On top of that, she’s pregnant with the child of the man with whom she’s ended things twice. Searching for her biological parents, does Nina have it in her to be a mother when she doesn’t know who she really is?
Lyrical prose, a vivid sense of place and compelling characters who remain with us combine in this outstanding debut novel from Slovenian writer, Brigita Orel.
We hope you enjoy our selection of ten great books set in Slovenia. Any of your favourites we’ve missed, please add in the Comments below.
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