The Fig Tree

The Fig Tree is a novel composed of the intertwining stories of the family of Jadran, a 30-something who tries to piece together the story of his relatives in order to better understand himself. Because he cannot understand why Anja walked out of their shared life, he tries to understand the suspicious death of his grandfather and the withdrawal of his grandmother into oblivion and dementia. With all his might, Jadran tries to understand the departure of his father in the first year of the war in the Balkans as he also tries to comprehend his mother, with her bewildering resentment of his grandfather, and her silent disappointment with his father.

The Fig Tree is a multigenerational family saga, a tour de force spanning three generations from the mid-20th century through the Balkans wars of the 90s until present day. Vojnović is a master storyteller, and while fateful choices made by his characters are often dictated by the historical realities of the times they live in, at its heart this is an intimate story of family, of relationships, of love and freedom and the choices we make.



Goran Vojnović exploded onto the Slovenian literary scene in 2008 with his debut novel Southern Scum Go Home!. The novel became an instant bestseller – it is in fact one of the bestselling Slovenian novels in recent decades. The novel reaped all the major national literary awards, including the Kresnik Award for best novel of the year and the Prešeren Fund Award, Slovenia's highest award for artistic achievement, His second novel, Yugoslavia, My Fatherland (2012), also received the Kresnik Award, was adapted for stage and translated into thirteen languages. His third novel, The Fig Tree (Figa, 2016), once again received the Kresnik. Vojnović is only the third person to ever receive three Kresnik Awards in its 27-year history, and no one has won it more than three times; he is also the first and only writer to have received the award for all his novels.