In a Sentimental Mood

In this brave and fresh poetry with (no) sentimental mood, “the bIeeding/ is what’s/ in the middle”—between the comfort and the disaster, the laugh and the cry, the joy and the sadness, the tenderness and the cruelty, the peace and the war, the summer atmosphere and the grave stones, the Eros and the Thanatos, the ethics and the esthetics, between the life and the death. —Lidija Dimkovska, author of A Spare Life and ph Neutral History. Ivana Bodrožić’s In a Sentimental Mood is emotional, but never woeful, deliberate, yet playful, poetry capable of reaching both the highest and deepest registers of expression. From abstract jazz-inspired musings to bedroom intimacies, these poems converse with the idea that being alone is not the worst thing that can happen to a person. To lose your dignity and the dignity of your words—that is the worst thing. Born in Vukovar in 1982, Ivana Bodrožić lives in Zagreb, Croatia. In 2005, she published her first poetry collection, Prvi korak u tamu (The First Step Into Darkness) as part of the Goran Award for Young Poets. Her first novel Hotel Zagorje (Hotel Tito) was published in 2010 and went on to be a Croatian best-seller; the French edition won the prestigious Prix Ulysse for best debut novel. She has also published the poetry collection Prijelaz za divlje životinje (A Road for Wild Animals) and the short story collection 100% Pamuk (100% Cotton). Her novel The Pit was awarded the Balkan Noir Prize for best crime novel. Bodrožić’s work has been translated into English, German, French, Czech, Danish, Slovenian, Hungarian, Spanish, Italian, and Macedonian.