I Saw Her That Night
SynopsisPlot
I Saw Her That Night, a love story in time of war, is a novel about a few years in the life and mysterious disappearance of Veronika Zarnik, a young bourgeois woman from Ljubljana, sucked into the whirlwind of a turbulent period in history. We follow her story from the perspective of five different characters, who also talk about themselves, as well as the troubled Slovenian times before and during World War II; times that swallowed, like a Moloch, not only the people of various beliefs involved in historical events, but also those who lived on the fringes of tumultuous events, which they did not even fully comprehend—they only wanted to live. But “only” to live was an illusion: it was a time when, even under the seemingly safe and idyllic shelter of a manor house in Slovenia, it was impossible to avoid the rushing train of violence.
Story
About this book
I Saw Her That Night follows the life and unexplained disappearance of Veronika Zarnik, a young woman from a comfortable bourgeois background in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Set before and during World War II, the novel traces a period when ordinary people found themselves caught up in forces they could neither control nor fully understand. Veronika's story unfolds through the voices of five different narrators, each offering a partial view of her life and of the turbulent circumstances surrounding it.
The five narrators do not simply tell Veronika's story. They also speak about themselves and their own entanglements with the era. Through their overlapping accounts, the novel builds a picture of Slovenian society under extreme pressure, where political allegiances and personal choices carried unpredictable consequences. Even those who tried to stay on the margins, sheltering behind the walls of a country manor, discovered that neutrality offered no real protection.
Drago Jancar, one of Slovenia's most prominent living authors, received both the French Prix du meilleur livre étranger and the Kresnik Award for this novel. The book is structured as a layered investigation into memory, witness, and the gaps between what different people see and recall of the same events.
