Catherine the Great and the Small
SynopsisPlot
Catharine's tragectory in life is accompanied by failures in love, family traumas and an incredible romance with handsome Sinisa. The novel takes us through turbulent times in the Balkan region, from the eighties to the present day, portraying growing up in the twilight of communism, and giving intimate insights into all that happened to the region after that. Carefully crafted characters and masterful, dynamic storytelling place Catherine the Great and the Small in the company of the very best of novels, which speak about the reality of their geographic setting and are remembered for their convincing, strong, maladjusted characters. Catherine is certainly one of them: a powerful female voice seeking her place within her family, among friends, in the cities she lives in, and constructing her unique identity as a daughter, granddaughter, friend, mistress, wife and a mother.
Story
About this book
Catherine the Great and the Small is a novel by Olja Knezevic, originally from Montenegro and translated into English. The story follows a woman named Catherine through decades of life in the Balkan region, beginning in the 1980s and continuing into the present day. Her personal history unfolds against a backdrop of political change, starting with the final years of communism and moving through the upheavals that followed in the region.
Catherine's life is shaped by difficult family relationships, disappointments in love, and a romance with a man named Sinisa. The novel traces her efforts to define herself across shifting roles as daughter, granddaughter, friend, wife and mother. She moves between cities, and each place becomes part of her changing sense of identity. She is written as a strong but uneasy figure who does not fit the expectations placed on her.
The book sets private experience beside regional history, using one woman's path to register how political change reached ordinary households. Its English edition carries the language of the original across, and the narrative moves between intimate detail and the wider story of the Balkans across roughly four decades of shifting borders and daily life.
