Acclaimed for writings about Yugoslav war, Josip Novakovich to read

Josip Novakovich, an award-winning fiction writer and essayist known for his depictions of the Yugoslav war of the 1990s and its aftermath, reads from his work at Bates at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 25, at the Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library, 70 Campus Ave.

The first entry in the 2014-15 Language Arts Live literary reading series at Bates, the event is open to the public at no cost. For more information, please call 207-786-6326.

Novakovich, who emigrated from Croatia at age 20, is the author of several books in diverse genres, including the novel April Fool’s Day (HarperCollins, 2004) and three collections of short stories: Yolk (Graywolf Press, 1995), Salvation and Other Disasters (Graywolf, 1998) and Infidelities: Stories of War and Lust (HarperCollins, 2005).

Kirkus Review described Novakovich’s style as “an exhilarating hybrid compounded of wry understatement, dazzling aphoristic wit, infusions of peasant superstition and a deadpan, down-to-earth Central European variant of Latin American magical realism. Wonderful stories that won’t be easily forgotten.”

Novakovich was born in 1956 in what is now Croatia and grew up under the authoritarian rule of Marshal Tito in the town of Daruvar, near the Hungarian border. He studied medicine in Serbia, and then moved to America, where his mother had been born, and continued his studies, in psychology and then in creative writing, at Vassar College and at Yale.

He lives in Montreal, where he teaches creative writing at Concordia University, and he has recently taken Canadian citizenship.