Before the Feast

A brilliant, quirky entertainment. — Kirkus, STARRED Review

A village fully in the present, yet rife with legends. In Before The Feast, this villagetells its own story—a novel as compelling multi-voiced chorale put in prose. — Leipzig Book Fair Jury Prize

We are glad. We are ecstatic, actually. We have an honest-to-God wordsmith in Saša Stanišic’. Only seldom does a work of literature embody the lyrical and the realistic simultaneously, the specific and the universal simultaneously, the body and the soul of the world, simultaneously. Stanišic’s prose captures the official narrative and the myth, the dream and the rumor, the hearsay, all of it. It captures how we humans see what we later dare to call reality. I love it. — Ismet Pric, author of SHARDS

A book like few others. Politically well-versed and stylistically a work of art. — DIE ZEIT

Serious subjects are raised throughout this impressive and sweeping portrait, including our relationship to history and the responsibility of remembering the past, but this comic novel never takes itself too seriously. The end result is both redemptive and hilarious. — PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Before the Feast is a big book in every sense: it’s vibrant, compassionate, and knowing. Stanišic channels an almost reckless energy into a novel that’s at once sprawling and controlled. — Stephen Sparks, Green Apple Books on the Park

Stanišic’s work is seamless, rhythmic, and captivating. Anthea Bell makes for a dream translator, perfectly capturing his whimsy and idiosyncrasies. This is not a book to consume once and leave on the shelf to collect dust. Like your favorite fairy tales, Before the Feast is a story to experience again and again, whose charms will enchant you every time it is read. — Rachel Kaplan, Avid Bookshop