About the Work

by Marina Gudelj

The story “Vještica,” translated here in English as “The Witch,” first appeared in the collection Fantomska bol (Phantom Pain). It’s the story I am most attached to in the collection and that is the most autobiographical, despite being full of fantastical elements.

The village in the story is unnamed, but is in fact my grandmother’s village, a tiny little town in the Dalmatian hinterland where, when I was a child, we visited my mother’s mother on the weekends. That was where I was exposed to various beliefs and superstitions, where I was surrounded by stories that were perceived as real. As soon as we drove into the village, my aunt would turn my undershirt inside out to protect me from evil spells. Everyone in the village knew exactly who the witch was, and I was not allowed to approach her or accept her gifts (sweets or eggs). Although in my mind I accepted all of this as true, I was not afraid, only intrigued; the stories were extensions of my own wild imagination that had already been awakened by the ocean and its creatures. Later, at university, I recorded all these beliefs for a course that assigned students to collect folk tales. Almost all of the fantastical details of “The Witch,” barring the very end, come from those stories. People truly believed them, or so they say.

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Marina Gudelj (b. 1988 in Split) holds a degree in Croatian language and literatures from the University of Zadar. She has written for as long as she can remember and begun publishing in the last few years. Her work has been published in a variety of journals and online platforms and placed in numerous competitions. Her debut short story collection Fantomska bol (Phantom Pain), published in 2020, was nominated for multiple awards. Her novel Nedovršena (Unfinished) appeared on Hena.com in 2021 and became a frontrunner for the prestigious T-portal award in Croatia, granted annually to the best novel. She runs a literature blog called Straničnik, where she publishes stories that (generally) fit on a single page. She lives in Split, where she is a lecturer in Croatian language. Her free time is spent more unpredictably.


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