Where You Come from

Sasa Stanisic's Where You Come From is a novel about a village where only thirteen people remain, a country that no longer exists, a shattered family that is his own. Blending autofiction, fable, and choose-your-own-adventure, Stanisic explores his family's escape during the conflict in Yugoslavia, and the years that followed as they built a life in Germany. He examines what it means to learn a new language, to find new friends and new jobs, to build an identity between countries and cultures. He also chronicles his grandmother's struggle with dementia: while he was gathering his memories, she was losing hers.

Translated by Damion Searls, Where You Come From is a self-portrait with ancestors, but also the breakdown of the idea of a self-portrait. It's a book about Stanisic's homelands, both remembered and imagined. A book that bends form and genre with wit, heart, and exceptional craftsmanship to explore questions that lie inside all of us: about language and shame, about arrival and making it just in time, about luck and death, about what role our origins and memories play in our lives.