Catch the Rabbit - by Lana Bastasic (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

Winner of the 2020 European Union Prize for Literature, Lana Bastasic's powerful debut novel Catch the Rabbit is an emotionally rich excavation of the complicated friendship between two women in a fractured, post-war Bosnia as they venture into the treacherous terrain of the Balkan wonderlands and their own history.

It's been twelve years since inseparable childhood friends Lejla and Sara have spoken, but an unexpected phone call thrusts Sara back into a world she left behind, a language she's buried, and painful memories that rise unbidden to the surface. Lejla's magnetic pull hasn't lessened despite the distance between Dublin and Bosnia or the years of silence imposed by a youthful misunderstanding, and Sara finds herself returning home, driven by curiosity and guilt. Embarking on a road trip from Bosnia to Vienna in search of Lejla's exiled brother Armin, the two travel down the rabbit hole of their shared past and question how they've arrived at their present, disparate realities.

As their journey takes them further from their homeland, Sara realizes that she can never truly escape her past or Lejla--the two are intrinsically linked, but perpetually on opposite sides of the looking glass. As they approach their final destination, Sara contends with the chaos of their relationship. Lejla's conflicting memories of their past, further complicated by the divisions brought on by the dissolution of Yugoslavia during their childhoods, forces Sara to reckon with her own perceived reality. Like Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend, Catch the Rabbit lays bare the intricacies of female friendship and all the ways in which two people can hurt, love, disappoint, and misunderstand one another.

Review Quotes

Praise for Catch the Rabbit:

"Bastasic's EU Prize-winning debut follows a Yugoslav-born woman's stunning Alice in Wonderland-style journey through Bosnia after returning home.... As the magnetic Lejla and Sara grow older, Sara's identity becomes so wrapped up in Lejla's that their personalities feed on each other.... Like twin Alices, their wonderland is both terrifying and enlightening, from the white rabbit Sara steals to cement her relationship with Lejla to a deep descent into the catacombs.... The narrative reaches a greatly satisfying climax, built on themes of rediscovering the past, memories, women's friendships, language, and identity. This unforgettable tour de force surprises at every turn."

--Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"Lana Bastasic's novel of two young women plunging into post-war Bosnia like two Alices into Wonderland is smart, energetic, passionate, announcing a major talent."

--Aleksandar Hemon, author of The Lazarus Project

"In a deeply layered study of language, identity, and the costs of war, translator/writer Sara returns from Dublin to Bosnia to help childhood friend Lejla find her missing brother, which ends up with the two women on a road trip assessing their friendship as well. Penetrating and immediate; a European Union Prize winner."

--Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal, Best World Literature of 2021

"[Bastasic's] Sara is a ferociously satisfying narrator, and though the subject of this book has already been adduced as some kind of Ferrante friendship X-ray, that shortchanges Bastasic's skill. The heart of the novel is a braiding of time and love."

--Sasha Frere-Jones, 4Columns

\"Catch the Rabbit, the spectacular debut novel from the Yugoslavian-born Lana Bastasic, uses these quieter consequences of the war and its aftermath to bolster a fantastically genuine yet gently fantastical story of female friendship.... Bastasic, who also translated the book into English, is a glorious writer, approaching even familiar emotions with a unique vibrancy, and if Catch the Rabbit simply followed Sara and Lejla as they drove from, say, Minneapolis to St. Louis, it would still be well worth your time."

--Cory Oldweiler, Minneapolis Star Tribune

"With razor-sharp images and a compelling, engaging, yet complex narrative voice, Bastasic's brilliant debut novel explores the stickiness of national identity through the story of a fractured friendship and a classic quest to recapture something that was lost."

--Josh Cook, Porter Square Books (Cambridge, MA)

"The pleasure of Catch the Rabbit lies in the way Bastasic fuses delicate scenes from a passionate friendship between girls with surreal elements that convey unspoken pains and tender aggressions. As in the best examples of magical realism, the unreal feels true here.... Catch the Rabbit is a funny story, fast and gripping despite its diversions, filled with observations of Bosnian society that are both tender and incisive."

--Irina Dumitrescu, Los Angeles Review of Books

"Bastasic wrestles questions of obligation and understanding into one woman's deeply personal reckoning. . . . It's a story of how a person can misunderstand her friend and herself and then be completely wrecked and rebuilt as she grows to a new understanding of her world. Prepare to be split in two. WOW!"

--Chris Lee, Boswell Book Company (Milwaukee, WI)

"This intense, dreamlike, gorgeously-realized descent into history and memory is deserving of its Ferrante comparisons."

--Dan Sheehan, Literary Hub - 38 Novels You Need to Read This Summer

"Bastasic's intense examination of female friendship provides a portal into the tumultuous recent history of the former Yugoslavia. Awarded the 2020 European Union Prize for Literature, Bastasic's compelling and enlightening first novel arrives in the US in her own agile translation, sure to engage urbane anglophone readers."

--Terry Hong, Booklist

"Lana Bastasic . . . possesses a truly authentic narrative voice. Her storytelling is both mature and energetic, and she has set a very high literary standard with this first novel."

--Dubravka Ugresic, author of The Age of Skin

About the Author

About the Author:

Lana Bastasic is a Yugoslav-born writer. Her debut novel Catch the Rabbit was shortlisted for the 2019 NIN award and was awarded the 2020 European Union Prize for Literature. She majored in English and holds a master's degree in cultural studies and currently resides in Barcelona.