Mars: Stories (Paperback or Softback)

A debut collection of darkly humorous, feminist speculative fiction from the Balkans, “sly, uncommon stories” by “a major talent” (Jeff VanderMeer, award-winning author of Hummingbird Salamander).

Mars showcases a series of unique and twisted universes, where every character is tasked with making sense of their strange reality. One woman will be freed from purgatory once she writes the perfect book; another abides in a world devoid of physical contact. With wry prose and skewed humor, an emerging feminist writer explores twenty-first century promises of knowledge, freedom, and power.

Asja Bakić (b. 1982) is a Bosnian author of poetry and prose, as well as a translator. She was selected as one of Literary Europe Live’s New Voices from Europe 2017, and her writing has been translated into seven languages. Her debut, Mars, was published in English by Feminist Press in 2019. She currently lives and works in Zagreb, Croatia.

Jennifer Zoble translates Balkan literature into English. Recent books include Call Me Esteban, her translation of Zovite me Esteban by Lejla Kalamujić, and her translation of Mars by Asja Bakić, which was named one of the “Best Fiction Books of 2019” by Publishers Weekly. Zoble is on the faculty of Liberal Studies at NYU, where she teaches writing and translation.

Ellen Elias-Bursać has been translating fiction and nonfiction by Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian writers since the 1980s, including novels and short stories by David Albahari, Dubravka Ugrešić, Daša Drndić, and Karim Zaimovič. She is co-author of a textbook for the study of Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian with Ronelle Alexander and author of Translating Evidence and Interpreting Testimony at a War Crimes Tribunal: Working in a Tug-of-War, awarded the Mary Zirin Prize in 2015. She has taught at the Harvard Slavic Department, Tufts University, ASU and the New England Friends of Bosnia and Herzegovina.